Yesterday Argentina banned all sales of airline tickets to, from, or within Argentina until September 1. Other South American countries have banned commercial flights, but Argentina’s ban extends furthest into the future. For more, see “Argentina stops all flights until 1 September, sparking outcry” published today in France 24. A similar story “Argentina bans commercial flight sales until 1 September” appears on the BBC.
Argentina has had a national COVID-19 lockdown since March 20, and recently extended the quarantine to May 10. As of this writing Worldometer says Argentina has 4 reported COVID-19 deaths per million population, compared to 172 reported deaths per million in the US and a world average of 27 reported deaths per million. The US has not banned commercial airline flights.
So — Argentina is locking down hard for several months to prevent further deaths despite its low reported mortality rate, whereas much of the US is charging ahead now despite its much-higher reported death rate. Could it be that the US federal government and most Republican-led states don’t care about Americans as much as Argentina’s government cares about Argentines?