Thought of the Day - December 25 - Antarctica

It has been over a month since Vanuatu and Samoa became some of the last places on earth to get their first cases of COVID-19 ( Thought of the Day - November 13 - The Last Island Hideouts ). I am glad to say in the meantime none of those remaining territories have reported their first infection. However, in this list I did not include the last remaining continent - Antarctica. With no permanent residents or associated countries, Antarctica was not on the list to be reported, until now.

Research and military stations in Antarctica – among the most remote in the world – had gone to extraordinary lengths in recent months to keep the virus out, canceling tourism, scaling back activities and staff and locking down facilities. Researchers with the British Antarctic Survey estimate about 1,000 people at 38 stations across the frozen continent had safely navigated the southern hemisphere winter without incident. But an uptick in travel to and from the region this spring and early summer have heightened infection risk.

Unfortunately, now the coronavirus has landed in Antarctica. As health and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine staff from a remote research station, Chile’s armed forces said at least 36 people had been infected at its Bernardo O’Higgins base, including 26 army personnel and ten civilian contractors conducting maintenance. The research station lies near the tip of a peninsula in northernmost Antarctica.

Base personnel “are already properly isolated and constantly monitored” by health authorities in Magallanes, in Chilean Patagonia, the army said, adding there had so far been no complications.

The Magallanes region, one of the closest populated areas to Antarctica and take-off point for many boats and planes headed to the continent, is among the hardest-hit in Chile.

Chile’s Navy also reported it too had detected three cases of COVID-19 among 208 crew members of a ship that had sailed in the Antarctic region between November 27 and December 10th.

Antarctica is the last place on earth you would expect to find SARS-CoV-2. Until now.

Cheers

Cliff