Myanmar’s political crisis is fueling ‘uncontrolled’ COVID-19

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — The dead in Myanmar are piling up outside cemeteries, overwhelming workers struggling to keep pace with the demand for cremations.

Those stricken with COVID-19 in Yangon, the country’s largest city, have begun flying yellow and white flags outside their homes in a plea for volunteers to deliver medicine and food. Social media are awash with appeals for oxygen as more and more people suffocate from the advance of the virus.

Six months after Myanmar was plunged into chaos by a military coup, the Southeast Asian nation is confronting a massive outbreak of COVID-19 fueled by the emergence of the delta variant. Less than 3% of Myanmar’s population is fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford, whose latest numbers are from June.

Unlike other major coronavirus surges in Asia, such as in India, Indonesia and Malaysia, Myanmar’s health crisis has been made more perilous by the country’s political turmoil and a military leadership accused of exploiting the pandemic to subdue resistance and stifle street protests.

The junta has ordered oxygen manufacturers to not sell to the public amid a serious shortage and ignored calls to blunt the spread of the disease in prisons filled with political detainees. The military has also cracked down on community volunteer medical groups formed by anti-junta health care workers.

Last week, soldiers reportedly posed as COVID19 patients to lure volunteers out of hiding in a township in Yangon. The soldiers subsequently raided the group’s office and arrested two doctors. Myanmar’s health care system, which was inadequate before the Feb. 1 coup, has all but collapsed with an estimated 80% of doctors, nurses and other medical workers on strike to protest the army’s takeover.

The military leadership has lashed out by arresting 67 medical professionals and issuing arrest warrants for 600 others for refusing to work, according to the Myanmar-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. At least seven medical workers are among the more than 930 people killed by the junta.

“You can’t attack a pandemic and healthcare professionals at the same time,” the independent United Nations human rights expert for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said in a tweet Monday.