TheCable

Why is social  distancing important in containing the coronavirus pandemic? More than half of those that have been infected in Uruguay had contact with a woman who attended a wedding after contracting the virus in Spain.

Although she had not been diagnosed before joining the 500-guest wedding party, Carmela Hontou had made two trips to Europe — now the epicentre of the pandemic — between January and March.

At the wedding which she attended hours after returning from Spain, 44 guests contracted the virus, more than half of the 79 cases the country recorded as of Wednesday.

In an interview with Infobae, an Angentinian media outlet, the 57-year-old said she is now seen as a “terrorist who brought the virus to kill everyone”.

Asked if she didn’t consider it unwise to mingle in large crowds having just arrived from Spain, Hontou, a fashion designer, was quoted as saying: “That’s ridiculous! Plus, do you know how many people came on that plane?”

With only four confirmed cases March 12, the sharp increase was reportedly linked to the wedding.

Earlier in January, Hontou was in Milan and Madrid for business meetings, Infobae reports, adding: “Everything indicates that it was on that trip that she caught it (the virus).

“I was in Milan on January 21 and I arrived in Madrid on the 24th. Since the 25th I flew with a fever, I spent three days at 41,” she was quoted as saying.

Apart from the wedding, the fashion designer reportedly went to another lunch “where there were also a lot of people.”

Now in isolation and receiving treatment, Hontou said the attacks she has been receiving worsens her condition.

“All this repercussion was very ugly, people think that I went to a wedding to spread a virus, and it was not like that,” she was quoted as saying.

In Nigeria ,which currently has 27 cases of the coronavirus, both the federal and state governments states have started taking steps to curb the spread, including bans on large gatherings and closure of schools.