Latin America in Short: Fear Grows Due to the Omicron Variant of COVID-19

This week the alert for the Omicron variant of COVID-19 has grown due to the fact that infections have increased in Latin America and Europe in recent weeks. In other news, Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of the charges against her of sex trafficking of minors. Finally, in environmental news, the Colombian State is sued for the massive death of bees. The most relevant news of the week summarized here.

Jeffrey Epstein's ex-partner found guilty of child sex trafficking

Ghislaine Maxwell, former sentimental partner of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, was found guilty on 5 of 6 charges against her. According to 12 members of a jury in New York, the daughter of tycoon Robert Maxwell helped Epstein have sex with children under 14 years of age.

The sentence, which will be issued soon, could mean more than 40 years in prison for the 60-year-old woman. For his part, Epstein, close to characters such as former presidents Bill Clinton (USA), Donald Trump (USA). ) and Andrés Pastrana (Colombia), committed suicide in a prison cell in 2019.

The US and Europe end the year with record numbers of COVID-19 infections

The year ends with a new record number of infections in one week. The advance of the highly contagious Omicron variant and winter have several countries in check. Spain broke the barrier of 100,000 infections per day; The United States had an average of 265,427 daily cases and France on Wednesday recorded 208,000 cases.

Anthony Fauci, the immunology adviser for the White House, has predicted that the peak of the Omicron variant will be recorded by the end of January.

Read also: Infographic: ABC Of The Omicron Variant

Lawsuit against the Colombian State for the massive death of bees

On December 28, an association of more than 3,000 beekeepers from different regions of Colombia filed a lawsuit with the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Agricultural Institute and the National Environmental Licensing Authority for the massive death of bees that are coming. filing since 2010. The plaintiff argues that since that year there have been a total of 176,000 dead hives due to the use of the following chemicals: fipronil, chlorpyrifos, neonicotinoids, all for agricultural use. The lawsuit has been filed for 768,504,352 pesos and is being led by the lawyer Luis Domingo Gómez Maldonado, who represents the beekeepers.

Increased risk by Ómicron also in Latin America, warns WHO

In the last week, the increase in infections in the region has alerted the governments and health services of the countries. Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Bolivia are some of the Latin American countries with the highest peaks of infections due to the new variant. According to the most recent report from the World Health Organization (WHO), it takes just two to three days for Omicron to double, making your risk very high.

The daily infections in different countries of Europe are proof of this. Even several governments have once again put mandatory restrictions on the end of the year holidays, which has left discontent in the region, where thousands of people are opposed to these and also to vaccines.

Luis Díaz has Coronavirus

The Portuguese press announced this Wednesday that Colombian winger Luis Díaz tested positive for coronavirus. The news causes concern, the Colombian had already tested positive in January of this year. The player will miss the classic against Benfica. His team, Porto, is second in the Premeira Liga.