The coronavirus has landed in Antarctica, the last continent free from Covid-19, Chile's military has announced, as health and army officials scrambled to clear out and quarantine staff from a remote research station surrounded by ocean and icebergs.
Chile's armed forces said at least 36 people had been infected at its Bernardo O'Higgins base, including 26 army personnel and ten civilian contractors conducting maintenance at the base.
The permanently staffed research station, operated by Chile's army, lies near the tip of a peninsula in northernmost Antarctica, overlooking a bay often dotted with icebergs.
Base personnel "are already properly isolated and constantly monitored" by health authorities in Magallanes, in Chilean Patagonia, the