Without enough vaccines, Nicolás Maduro ordered two weeks of “radical quarantine” due to rising infections in Venezuela

Nicolás Maduro announced this Sunday a set of restrictive measures to strengthen the national quarantine, given the increase in COVID-19 infections in the Caribbean country, which has been described by the executive as a “second wave” of ‘infections.

In a televised speech, the President reported that The so-called radical quarantine, which involves the cessation of any activity not considered essential such as health or diet, will be extended until Sunday, April 4, which means that upcoming Easter activities will be restricted or suspended.

Maduro had previously declared that this public holiday, which will begin on Sunday March 28, will take place under the modality of “flexibilisation”, which however allows commercial and mobility activities throughout the country, now decided to do away with normality during these days, given the increase in the daily number of coronavirus infections.

In addition, he noted, this measure is due to the “strong” diffusion of the Brazilian variant of COVID-19 which, he explained, is present in several states of the country, with particular emphasis. in Caracas and its neighboring states of Miranda and La Guaira, as well as in the south of Bolívar, on the border with Brazil.

More, Maduro ruled out reopening of educational centers scheduled for April. “At the moment it is not possible, at the moment we are not going to start face to face lessons,” he said. As he added, during the relaxed quarantine days, parents will be able to interact with teachers to review homework. “The face-to-face classes will take place until further notice,” he said.

The quantity of daily cases per million people tends to grow in Venezuela since early March (Our World in Data)

CASES ARE GROWING

“For six months we maintained control of the pandemic, that has changedHe said, recalling that since last September, Venezuela had not registered a thousand new cases of COVID-19, while the government balance on Saturday showed 1,161 infections.

Currently, as detailed, the country has a rate of 27 positive cases per 100,000 population and has “increased the occupancy of hospital beds”, although it did not give details on this aspect which had already been denounced by the medical union.

In addition, Maduro said there had been a “relaxation” in biosecurity measures, which led to “everyone” having parties in their homes or holding meetings despite the risk of becoming infected because this are Venezuelans who “have lost their respect and fear the coronavirus”.

“We have to put these celebrations on hold for a long time“He insisted.

The table compares the average vaccination worldwide with that of Venezuela, which provides scarce official data on the progress of its plan, based on inoculants from Russia and China (Our World in Data)

MORE RESTRICTIONS

Although Venezuela is now in “better conditions” to cope with the pandemic, the president said, several measures are necessary to try to reduce the transmission of the disease in the country, which is accumulating at to date just over 150,000 infections and 1,483 deaths.

Likewise, the executive approved a community disinfection plan in which coronavirus patients as well as public transport units reside, strengthen the investigation of suspected cases and include risk groups in the COVID-19 vaccination, which is already being considered, according to Maduro.

The chavist leader added that teachers have already started vaccination with doses of vaccines donated by China. “With the vaccines which will arrive, we will continue to vaccinate to reach 100% of the personnel of education and health”. At the same time, he pointed out that In the first week of April, vaccines will arrive from Cuba, Soberana-02 and Abdala, for testing by the Caribbean nation.

On February 18, vaccination began in Venezuela. Between February 13 and March 6, 200,000 doses of Russian inoculation with Sputnik V arrived, or 2% of the total of 10 million initially agreed in December between Caracas and Moscow. At the same time, Venezuela received on March 1 a batch of 500,000 doses of the Vero Cell vaccine from the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm, donated by the Asian giant.

Maduro reported days after his government invested $ 200 million in the 10 million doses of the Russian vaccine, which are expected to be in the country by April, when Venezuela is expected to be able to roll out a mass vaccination campaign.

(With information from EFE, AP and Reuters)

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