Corona Reaches to Antarctica

Finally Covid-19 has landed in Antarctica said by Chile's military this week, as health and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine staff from remote research station surrounded by ocean and icebergs.

Army force said at least 36 people has been infected at it’s Bernardo O’Higgins base, including 26 army personnel and 10 civilian contractors conducting maintenance at the base

The permanently staffed research station, operated by Chile’s army, lies near the tip of a Peninsula in Northernmost Antarctica, overlooking a bay often dotted with icebergs.

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.

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.