NewsTracker Answers for week of June 08, 2020

Q: Peru’s hospitals don’t have enough medicinal oxygen to treat a growing wave of patients suffering from the novel coronavirus. Local health official claimed that hundreds of people have lost their lives because of the shortage of oxygen tanks. Where is the South American nation of Peru?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The COVID-19 pandemic is growing rapidly in the region. Peru’s eastern neighbor removed months virus data from its website as the nation’s death toll became the third largest in the world. Which nation borders Peru to the east?

A. Brazil

B. Chile

C. Colombia

D. Ecuador

A. Peru is bordered in the east by Brazil, the southeast by Bolivia, the south by Chile, the west by the Pacific Ocean, the northwest by Ecuador and northeast by Colombia. After months of criticism of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the outbreak, the government removed the COVID-19 data and now only reports cases and deaths for the past 24 hours.

Q: With nearly 36,0000 deaths, Brazil ranks third in the number of deaths right behind which nation?

A. France

B. Italy

C. United Kingdom

D. United States

C. With more than 109,000 COVID-19 deaths, the United States has nearly as many deaths as the next three nations combined – the United Kingdom with over 40,000, Brazil’s 35,930 and Italy with more than 33,000. Brazil removed its data after the nation reported more than 1,000 deaths a day for four consecutive days.

Q: Peru’s president ordered industrial plants to ramp up production or purchase oxygen from other countries. One academic said, “Peru, with the Amazon, has the lungs of the planet, and we’re dying because of lack of oxygen.” What produces the most oxygen in the world?

A. Amazon rainforest

B. Africa’s vegetation

C. Ocean microorganisms

D. World’s farmlands

C. About 50 percent of the world’s oxygen-producing photosynthesis comes from phytoplankton microorganisms in the oceans. Scientists say claims the Amazon produces 20 percent of the world’s oxygen are exaggerated and it actually is closer to 10 percent. But, the Amazon does trap a great deal of carbon and increased burning of the forest is releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

Q: Peru’s most severe shortages of medicinal oxygen have been in its Amazon region. About 60 percent of the rainforest is in Brazil, followed by Peru with 13 percent. Which of its neighbors contains nearly as much of the Amazon as Peru.

A. Bolivia

B. Colombia

C. Chile

D. Ecuador

B. In Colombia, which has about 10 percent of the rainforest, doctors in the Amazon have had to airlift patients to Bogota because the only oxygen plant in the region is barely functioning. In all, nine nations have some territory in the 2.7 million square miles of the Amazon basin.