Families say virus deaths being covered up
Nicaraguan authorities have been accused of falsifying death certificates and ordering ‘‘express burials’’ as the socialist regime attempts to cover up a mounting death toll from Covid-19.
The Central American state of 6.5 million people is paying the price for the government’s attempts to play down the coronavirus and ignore advice on lockdowns and social distancing.
Family members of victims said their loved ones had died of suspected Covid-19 but official records were scrubbed, while bodies were ferried to mass graves in pickup trucks.
‘‘Workers dressed like astronauts, in yellow and white, pushed him into a grave with an excavator,’’ Vladimir Rodriguez said after his 44-year-old brother, Elder, died from ‘‘respiratory failure’’ in a Nicaraguan hospital on May 11. ‘‘The truth is, it was Covid, but the doctor said they’d received orders not to record this.’’
Experts in Nicaragua support Rodriguez’s story. They accuse the Nicaraguan government of carrying out dozens of such ‘‘express burials’’ to hide the true number of cases.
‘‘At this time of year, it’s very rare to die of pneumonia,’’ says Jorge Miranda, a pneumonologist at Vivian Pellas Hospital in Managua. ‘‘Everyone dying of pneumonia is dying of coronavirus. The government is lying to keep its figures down.’’
The latest official figures, released Wednesday, claim Nicaragua has only 25 cases of coronavirus and eight deaths.
But the streets tell a different story. In cities at the centre of Nicaragua’s outbreak, residents have shared dozens of photographs of grave diggers clad in protective gear disposing of bodies in hastily dug holes.
Observers have long warned that the government’s inadequate response would trigger a devastating epidemic.
In mid-March, as the World Health Organisation urged governments to adopt social distancing, Nicaragua’s vicepresident arranged a mass gathering titled ‘‘Love in the time of Covid-19’’. As time went on, questions swirled around the disappearance of 74-year-old president Daniel Ortega, who was not seen for more than a month. Then, in mid-April, he reappeared, giving a characteristically messianic speech calling coronavirus ‘‘a sign from God’’. He urged Nicaraguans to keep working and eschewed any social distancing.
Ortega has been named as part of the ‘‘Ostrich Alliance’’ of a handful of leaders who are denying the impact of Covid-19 in favour of keeping economies open.
Mexico began on a similar track. In mid-March, president Andre´s Manuel Lo´pez Obrador told Mexicans: ‘‘You have to hug each other. Nothing will happen.’’
But by the end of the month, he had declared a health emergency.
Other notable global outliers include Belarus and Brazil, where hard-Right president Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed Covid as ‘‘a little flu’’.
‘‘The difference is that the president of Brazil has been very irresponsible, but state governors have been able to take measures in terms of social distancing and quarantine,’’ Antonia Urrejola, Nicaragua rapporteur at the InterAmerican Commission for Human Rights, said. ‘‘But in Nicaragua, there are no checks and balances on executive power – so Ortega and [vice-president] Murillo determine everything.’’
At the eye of the gathering storm in Nicaragua is the transit city of Chinandega, near the country’s northern border. The city’s one public hospital is at the point of ‘‘total collapse,’’ with the director, assistant director, and head of intensive care all absent after testing positive. ‘‘It’s chaos, the corridors are full of rubbish because half the cleaners have stopped coming in,’’ a doctor said.
As the storm clouds build, Ortega faces a dangerous irony. It is supporters of the government – those most likely to attend official events and heed the state’s advice – who are bearing the brunt of the consequences.
‘‘I was always with Ortega, but he’s falling for his own lies,’’ Rodriguez said. His aunt also died last week, her death certificate recording pneumonia as the cause. And a second brother has just started suffering Covid-19 symptoms.
The Health Ministry did not respond to requests for comment. –