The mythical Centennial stadium in Uruguay became a shelter for people at risk of death from coronavirus

The emblematic stadium Montevideo Centennial It opened its doors this Wednesday to house 28 homeless and physically challenged people under the threat of COVID-19, which so far registers 189 infected in Uruguay. Who were accommodated in this place are people who are immunodeficient from chronic diseases such as diabetes, HIV, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

In the stadium that served as the setting for the first ever Soccer World Cup (1930), these people will be located specifically under the Amsterdam grandstand – named after one of Uruguay's two Olympic football titles (1924 and 1928) -, where there is a two-story center usually used by teams to concentrate before games. In fact, before the construction of the Celeste Complex, on the outskirts of Montevideo, the Uruguayan team stayed several times in that place.

On the first floor, the people housed have at their disposal a large kitchen, dining room and living room, in which there is a wood stove, a table tennis table and a table football (or metegol). Meanwhile, the second floor has bathrooms and bedrooms, all with single beds.

In principle, as they indicated to EFE sources from the Ministry of Social Development (Mides), the 28 people who arrived will stay there for the duration of the health emergency that faces the South American country since March 13 and will receive four meals a day.

In the same way, the Palacio Contador Gastón Guelfi, where the headquarters and the basketball court of the Peñarol, also has several beds in the area of ​​the playing field, where another group of about 320 people will be accommodated in a street situation that Mides is relocating these days due to its age or sanitary conditions.

In addition to the aforementioned sports centers, several sports squares in the Uruguayan capital were also made available to Mides, according to what they told EFE sources from the National Sports Secretariat (SND). According to the latest figures released by the Executive Power this Tuesday, Uruguay has 182 positive cases since March 13, when the first four were known

According to the Johns Hopkins University count, 20,499 deaths have been reported worldwide and a total of 451,355 positive cases. The countries with the most fatalities are Italy, China and Spain. As the new coronavirus expands, more countries issue quarantine orders, isolation or curfew, and on Tuesday the government of India ordered the total confinement in that country of 1.3 billion inhabitants for three weeks.

In South America, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia and Peru are the countries that decreed the mandatory quarantine. In Uruguay, President Luis Lacalle Pou decreed "social isolation" and the closing of borders with Brazil and Argentina.

In Argentina, the vast majority of clubs offered their facilities to the authorities. Thus, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) made the futsal team's gym in Ezeiza available to the National, Provincial and City Government of Buenos Aires, which has the possibility of accommodating up to 120 beds, in the face of a health emergency caused by the coronavirus pandemic.