Chile says three dozen people are infected with coronavirus on its remote Antarctica station

Covid-19 has finally reached Antarctica, making it the last continent to be affected by the pandemic.

Some 36 civilian and army personnel at a Chilean research station on the continent tested positive for coronavirus, according to Chile’s army and health ministry officials in the southern Chilean province of Magallanes.

Chilean officials are investigating how the virus reached the Base General Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme, said a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Magallanes, Chile’s southernmost region. He said that so far none of the infected men have had severe symptoms.

The 26 army personnel and 10 civilians, who are contractors for a company doing maintenance at the base, were evacuated to the city of Punta Arenas, where the army’s fifth division said they have been put in isolation and are under “constant monitoring.”

“The Army’s V Division confirms its unconditional commitment to protect the health of its members,” the Chilean army said in a statement Friday. “For the moment there is a favorable diagnosis and no kind of complication associated with Covid-19 in our personnel.”

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