Sitting far from the South American nation’s bustling capital, health workers in Ushuaia were initially able to contain a small outbreak among foreigners hoping to catch boats to the Antarctic at the start of the crisis.

Across Latin America, three other nations are expected to reach the 1 million case milestone in the coming weeks — Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

The grim mark comes as Latin America continues to register some of the world’s highest daily case counts.

The trajectory is showing that the pandemic is likely to leave no corner of Latin America unscathed.

Mexico, likewise, has seen a rise in a quarter of all states over the last week.

The virus’ cruel path through Latin America is a consequence of weak public health systems, social factors like poverty and poor government decisions early on that resulted in flawed or limited testing and little contact tracing.

Adolfo Rubinstein, a former Argentine health minister, said the nation depended too heavily on lockdowns as its primary means of controlling the virus, failing to purchase enough tests in the initial months of the pandemic.

Initially, up to 90% of the confirmed cases were in metropolitan Buenos Aires.

Today, 65% of Argentina’s cases are in its provinces and even faraway places like Ushuaia, authorities said.

Etienne, director of the Americas branch of the World Health Organization, warned recently that the coronavirus is appearing in places that were previously not affected, with high numbers popping up in regions like the English-speaking Caribbean.

“We need more consistent mask use — but we have to couple that with testing and tracing — or else the numbers are going to rise tremendously.”.

In Ushuaia, officials believe truckers carrying in produce from the Buenos AIres region may be responsible for the rise in cases since mid-September.

The Tierra del Fuego province, which has a population of about 150,000, now has over 8,000 confirmed cases