Peru orders total lockdown across 10 states as second wave bites
LIMA (Reuters) - President Francisco Sagasti of Peru on Tuesday night announced a total lockdown of the capital and nine other regions following a significant increase in COVID cases, which he said had pushed hospitals close to collapse.
On Tuesday, Peru reported 4,444 new cases of the coronavirus, taking its total to 1,107,239, and 40,107 deaths. According to Reuters data, Peru's cases are at 57% of an Aug. 22 peak, when more than 9,000 new cases were confirmed.
Sagasti said COVID vaccines were the way out of the crisis and pledged to be among the first to receive the shot.
He said the first one million of an order for 38 million doses of Sinopharm’s candidate vaccine would arrive “in the coming days”, ready for an inoculation campaign to begin in February.
Peru also has a deal to buy 14 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca Plc and its regulators are also weighing emergency use requests from Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and Pfizer.