(Bloomberg) -- Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra said some coronavirus restrictions can likely begin to be lifted next month even as cases rise due to a surge in testing over the past week.
The greater number of cases, now second in Latin America behind Brazil, can be explained by a 15-fold increase in testing. Medical staff tested more than 15,000 people on Monday compared with about 1,000 a day a week earlier when authorities were limited to using more expensive, and scarcer, molecular tests, Vizcarra said.
The Andean country reported 10,303 cases on Tuesday with deaths doubling in the past seven days to 230, the fourth-highest count in the region behind Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico. The number of people tested jumped to more than 102,000, second only to Brazil with a population seven times larger.
Vizcarra decreed a nationwide lockdown on March 16 with some of the region's most stringent containment measures, ten days after reporting the first case of the virus. He went on to announce the biggest economic stimulus package in the Americas, including cash handouts and cheap business loans.
Read More: Virus Lockdown Cut Movement 89% in Peru, Double Rate of Mexico
His decision to shutdown much of the economy will drive the country into a recession, with growth set to contract 4.5% this year, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
The tough lockdown rules appear to be paying off. Slowing growth in the number of patients requiring hospitalization and ventilators mean the country is on the right track and can plan for a gradual reopening of the economy next month, Vizcarra said.
“We're semi-paralyzed as a country,” he said. “We're going to restart activities during May, gradually, slowly so as not to trigger a resurgence of the illness. ”
Chile, with a population of 18 million, has about 7,500 cases and has carried out a similar number of tests as Peru. Mexico, on the other hand, with 126 million people, has lagged on testing and reported just 5,000 cases.
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