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Dec 22, 2020 07:41 PM EST
(Photo : Getty Images/Mario Tama) ANTARCTICA - OCTOBER 28: A section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with mountains is viewed from a window of a NASA Operation IceBridge airplane on October 28, 2016 in-flight over Antarctica. NASA s Operation IceBridge has been studying how polar ice has evolved over the past eight years and is currently flying a set of 12-hour research flights over West Antarctica at the start of the melt season. Researchers have used the IceBridge data to observe that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be in a state of irreversible decline directly contributing to rising sea levels. NASA and University of California, Irvine (UCI) researchers have recently detected the speediest ongoing Western Antarctica glacial retreat rates ever observed. The United Nations climate change talks begin November 7 in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.
The most isolated continent on the planet now reports cases of COVID-19
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Karen TownsendPosted at 9:01 pm on December 22, 2020
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Base General Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme is a permanently staffed Chilean research station in Antarctica. It is one of four permanent bases that Chile has in the Antarctic. It is operated by the Chilean army. Antarctica is the last of the seven continents to report cases of the coronavirus. Authorities confirmed 36 positive cases of COVID-19 on Monday.
Scientific research being conducted on the continent has been scaled back due to the pandemic and travel restrictions. Scheduled maintenance was being performed in this area. The positive cases come from 26 Army personnel and 10 civilians from a contractor company. The news came just days after Chile’s navy confirmed three cases on a ship that had taken supplies and personnel to the research station. The virus was brought into the research station.
Nearly a year after the first cluster of COVID-19 cases were first officially reported China, the pandemic has reached Antarctica.
Until December 21, the world s southernmost continent had not reported a single case of COVID-19 but 36 have now been confirmed at the General Bernardo O Higgins base, a Chilean research station,
The Chilean Army said in a statement that 26 of those who tested positive are military personnel while the remaining 10 are civilian contractors. All were carrying out maintenance work at the base.
It is unclear how these people were infected and whether the disease has spread to other research facilities on the continent.
Coronavirus reaches Antarctica
Chilean authorities announced this week that a coronavirus outbreak had taken place in one of its bases in Antarctica. It marks the first time the virus has reached the remote icy continent.
Research and military stations in Antarctica had gone to great lengths in to keep the virus out. Tourism had been canceled, activities and staff had been scaled back, while several facilities had been locked down.
Where was the virus found?
The Chilean navy said it had detected three cases of COVID-19 among 208 crew members of Sargento Aldea ship, which sailed from Chile s southernmost Magallanes region to the Antarctic region between November 27 and December 10.
1st Covid-19 cases recorded in Antarctica 1 minute read
Santiago de Chile, Dec 22 (efe-epa).- Covid-19 has now spread to every continent on Earth as 36 people have tested positive for the coronavirus at a Chilean military base in Antarctica.
The Chilean army reported in a statement that 26 military personnel and 10 civilian contractors at the Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme base tested positive on Sunday and were evacuated and “isolated” in Punta Arenas, a city in southern Chile.
Those infected are being “constantly monitored with the support from the Health Authority of the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region, achieving so far a favorable diagnosis and without any complications associated with Covid-19 by our staff,” added the institution.