The COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). As of 29 September 2024, a total of 10,102,458 people were confirmed to have been infected, and 130,673 people were known to have died because of the virus.[3]
On 3 March 2020, the virus was confirmed to have spread to Argentina.[4][5][6][7] On 7 March 2020, the Ministry of Health confirmed the country's first documented death, a 64-year-old man who had travelled to Paris, France, who also had other health conditions; the case was only confirmed as positive after the patient's demise.[8]
On 19 March 2020, a nationwide lockdown was established in Argentina.[9][10] The lockdown was lifted throughout all the country, excepting the Greater Buenos Aires urban area (where 31.9% of the country's population live),[11] on 10 May, with Greater Buenos Aires locked down until 17 July, where the lockdown was due to be gradually loosened in several stages to lead to the return to normality;[12] restrictions were extended several times until 8 November 2020.[13] During the second wave, another nationwide lockdown took place from 22 to 31 May 2021.[14]
Responses to the outbreak have included restrictions on commerce and movement, closure of borders, and the closure of schools and educational institutions.[15] Clusters of infections and deaths have occurred in nursing homes, prisons and other detention centers, and urban areas.[16][17] The number of tests increased over time, although there were some concerns as there was less testing than in other countries of the region such as Chile and Peru.[18] Even so, the government's responses to the pandemic were among the best received by the population in the region during the early stages of the pandemic.[19]
On 12 January, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, who was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.[20][21] The case fatality rate for COVID-19[22][23] has been much lower than the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, but transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.[24][22] Model-based simulations for Argentina indicate that the 95% confidence interval for the time-varying reproduction number Rt exceeded 1.0 from April to July 2020, after which it diminished to below 1.0 in October and November 2020.[25]