With over 80,000 dead, Argentines struggle under weight of COVID-19

FILE PHOTO: Ernesto Fabian Aguirre, a gravedigger in the Memorial cemetery, stands next to a coworker as they put on protective equipment before an exercise for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) burials, after deaths have surpassed 70,000 amid a strong second wave of the pandemic and a slow vaccination process, in Buenos Aires, Argentina May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -For lawyer Lidia Alverisi, Argentina's COVID-19 pandemic has taken an almost unbearable toll.

"We have all lost someone, someone we knew well," she told Reuters. "In my case, it's been friends I've known for 40 years who were gone in just 10 days."