Signs that anticipate an imminent increase in COVID-19 deaths in Venezuela

Venezuelans had a rare opportunity to celebrate last week when a government directive paved the way for Hundreds of thousands of their endangered compatriots have received doses of covid-19 vaccines.

Oh, hope.

The compatriots in question were immigrants, who left their homeland to rebuild their lives abroad. The government was Colombian, whose directive to protect Venezuelan expatriates did not emanate from the Caudillo de Caracas, but from its spokesperson on the other side of the border, President Iván Duque. Better yet, the vaccine supply is part of a broader agreement to grant temporary protection status to Venezuelans living irregularly in Colombia, allowing nearly a million displaced neighbors to reside, work and legally access public health in their adoptive homes.

These are the vital signs of the Bolivarian Republic, where for those who have been left behind, the prospect is hopeless. Long before the impact of the novel coronavirus, Venezuela was experiencing the worst economic and institutional collapse in Latin American history. For those who have no outlet, this has long translated into unemployment and poverty. As COVID-19 infections are set to accelerate, an increase in crippling illnesses and deaths is also expected.

It is a miracle that the virus has no longer overwhelmed Venezuela. Para el 11 de febrero, el país había registrado oficialmente casi 132,000 casos y lamentado la pérdida de 1,260 vidas a causa de la enfermedad, a number notably modesto in comparación con el afectado continente sudamericano, in particular if the devastation of the system of sistema will be considered from Venezuela. Regime authorities attribute the relatively low contagion curve to timely warrants to wear masks and quarantine measures.

Quarantines and social distancing, the preferred tools of authoritarian regimes seeking to quell collective dissent, may have helped. However, Doctors and medical professionals report that the combination of official ineptitude and the country’s economic emergency may have camouflaged and, as a result, grossly underestimated the crisis.

Let’s start with the severe gasoline shortage that has depleted fuel pumps, reduced national mobility and therefore slowed down, or perhaps simply delayed, the spread of disease in the community, which has hit Caracas and Italy hardest. State. However, the Chronically flawed or manipulated public health data has led to an underestimated tally of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Venezuela’s health authorities stopped publishing public health statistics in 2016.

A virus tracking failure added to this mirage. With just two accredited government labs in Caracas, where the majority of cases have been reported, and little testing elsewhere, Venezuela is blindly facing the pandemic. “Do the math: How much evidence can the two government institutions process?”said Venezuelan infectious disease specialist Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi, deputy director of microbiology at Icahn School of Medicine in Mount Sinai.

In fact, the country has on average only 21.3 swab tests (PCR) per 100,000 inhabitants since April, a rate five times lower than that of neighboring countries, according to a study carried out in December by Venezuelan researchers María Eugenia Grillet and Margarita Lampo. Unsurprisingly, Venezuela’s official contagion curve looks flat.

This romance will not last. After being confined to certain areas, the virus began to spread rapidly in the middle of last year.

The quarantine fatigue, relaxation of social distancing orders and makeshift damage control measures Nicolás Maduro, who removed price controls and let the dollar circulate freely to reactivate the prostrate domestic market, accelerated the contagion. Self-employed healthcare workers who follow the virus predict that it could increase soon.

Perhaps no country in the region is less prepared. The national survey of Venezuelan hospitals and the non-governmental network for the defense of the epidemiology of Venezuela counted only 720 intensive care beds and 102 ventilators nationwide when the pandemic began. The numbers are no better today, says Paniz-Mondolfi.

As if the horrible sanitary conditions weren’t enough of a problem, the the regime’s interference and medical approach are out of control. Doctors Without Borders threw in the towel last November and shut down operations at a key emergency hospital in the slums of Caracas after repeated interference. Venezuela’s frontline doctors and health workers need all the support they can get, as some 30,000 doctors had already fled the country before the pandemic began. Those who are left face a crumbling health system. A survey conducted early last year found that 75% of physicians attended facilities where the water supply was unreliable, while 65% worked without gloves, face shield, soap, goggles or hospital clothing.

Mass vaccination would be a blessing. However, a Difficult partisan circumstances threatened an agreement to secure up to 6 million doses of covid-19 vaccine to Venezuela through the World Health Organization’s global Covax mechanism. Bloomberg News reported on February 11 that a breakthrough could be near, but so far Maduro has said he cannot pay for vaccines due to funds frozen by the United States government, while Juan Guaidó cannot pay for vaccines. will not request the release of these funds until Maduro aligns with the Pan American Health Organization.

Without giving in, Maduro snubbed Guaidó and his main ally, the United States, by announcing a deal with Moscow to import the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia., of which 100,000 doses are expected to arrive next week and possibly millions more at some point. But for now, unfortunately, the best plan for most Venezuelans to ward off the local havoc might be to travel to a neighboring country.

© 2021 Bloomberg LP

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