
La mata de calafate - Calafate bush
A house to rest in a place to discover

El Calafate, everyone's work and effort:
essential staff, volunteers, calafateños:
only 39 positive cases from the first French tourist.
Early August, in many cities of Argentina
new outbreaks of contagion emerge
El Calafate is experiencing its first outbreak: new positive cases
and a group of people isolated preventively.
New positive Covid 19 cases will appear until acquired
immunity through the long-awaited vaccine.
El Calafate, as a tourist destination, faces the challenge
to comply with national, provincial and municipal protocols,
inviting those who visit it, to do it together.
Collaborating with everyone, inhabitants and visitors,
taking care of your own life and that of others,
we can enjoy the rest,
the peace and beauty of this wonderful place.




How do we live this Covid-19 Pandemic in El Calafate City
March 2020, Friday 13
First positive cases of Covid 19 in El Calafate:
three passengers from a group of French tourists,
(older adults, who arrived in El Calafate on March 12), show symptoms of Covid 19.


March, April 2020
Hard work, together:
Tourism sector,
Government Sector,
Health Sector:
each one in his task,
coordinated by the Organizing Committee, taking care of the health organization
of this city to face
the Covid19 Pandemic
that started in Argentina,
and at the same time, in El Calafate,
- city that counted at that time
with 30,000 local inhabitants
and 8,000 visiting tourists -.

Staff from the Tourism and Government Sector collaborating
with the tourists who visited us, looking for a place by land transports
and air transports so that they can return to their places of origin,
before the closing of borders in Argentina.



Health workers:
The health centers of the city are reorganized:
the José Formenti Hospital, the Community Integrating Center: as primary care centers;
the modern SAMIC: High Complexity Hospital, chosen
as one of the country's centers for realization
of Covid 19 Hyssop Analysis,
with a wide sector dedicated exclusively to
the care of suspected and confirmed Covid 19 patients


May 2020, Saturday 2
Day of celebration for the city of El Calafate:
They return to their country, after an arduous and hard battle,the group of 23 French tourists from which it originatedhe first positive case of Covid 19 in El Calafate.
Two thirds of the group infected; all recovered,
only one of them, aged 82, continued to be hospitalized
one more month in France, until full recovery.
Fifty-one days of stay in a strange country,
another language, other customs,
until finally France sends a special flight to repatriate them.
The thank you letter that they left us,
expresses what the vast majority live
of the tourists who visit us:
the warmth of the Calafateños when receiving the tourist.



"Our French Group called AGAR AZUR, about to leave for France and leave
its beautiful country, its immense and wild deserts and its clean and
crystalline glaciers, but above all, a country of men and women in which they live,
with a big heart like Argentina.
Before leaving, the group really wants to pay tribute to the brilliant work
of hospital staff. Starting from the management, up to all the competent doctors,
especially radiological precision and the importance of nurses, cooks,
that despite our different regimens, they gave us everything we needed.
To all without exception, we have the immense gratitude
and we just don't know what to say:
MERCI!
A big THANK YOU for everything and everyone "

March, April, May, June, July 2020
After the first moment of suspicion, fear, concern,
before the contagion of 39 people
(between tourist and local inhabitants)
from the French tourists, El Calafate
transits his life in Pandemic Covid-19.
going through the various phases of quarantine.
In all this time we were not distressed by the closure
of the quarantine, when we had it;
nature accompanied us to cope with it.
All this time we only feel the pain of knowing that
Los Glaciares National Park is closed
that no one can contemplate the beauty
of thePerito Moreno Glacier going down
to Lake Argentino




November 5th
The Nacional Park is open
December 5th
El Calafate opens to tourism !
El Calafate invites you


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