BUENOS AIRES, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Wednesday called for Latin American unity to tackle the challenges posed by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
"The pandemic is much more than a disease that has claimed lives. The pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of a system," Fernandez said in an address during a visit to the headquarters of the Santiago, Chile-based Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
Fernandez said, "I'm not talking about the insufficiency of capitalism, but about recreating a more humanitarian capitalism, because this capitalism of financial derivatives, where fortunes are made in minutes simply by betting on a bond or a share -- the truth is that it makes many rich, but impedes millions of human beings around the world."
The pandemic has shown "economic foundations were not solid, social foundations were weak. Injustice existed and it was revealed that inequality was a problem," said Fernandez.
"To overcome, the unity of the continent is central. Governing Argentina is no easy task, but in a globalized world, where the need for multilateralism is becoming increasingly clear, we need to be a united continent to face the challenge that is coming," urged the president.
As of Tuesday, Argentina registered 1,885,210 cases of COVID-19 infection and 47,253 deaths from the disease.
