Nicaraguan government is doing little to stop the coronavirus
As most nations adopt strict quarantine measures to protect themselves from the coronavirus, the Nicaraguan government has taken quite the contrarian approach, declaring the pandemic risks overrated and encouraging citizens to go about their everyday lives.
Half a dozen Nicaraguan doctors, journalists and civic leaders told the Miami Herald that the Daniel Ortega government has done very little to prepare the Central American country for the spread of COVID-19, and that in fact it has been organizing and promoting public gatherings instead of ordering quarantines.
“They are doing the opposite of what needs to be done,” said neurosurgeon Josmar Ulises Briones. “The government has not taken a single preventive action to stop the spread of the virus.”
Causing additional concern among the local medical community, officials seem to be under-reporting the real number of coronavirus cases. Doctors working at Nicaraguan public hospitals say that an atypical increase in the number of pneumonia patients coming into the hospitals in the past few days are not being properly handled or even tested for the virus.
Yet the government insists that there isn’t really much to be concerned about, claiming that there are only five confirmed cases and one coronavirus death in the country. In contrast, neighbors Costa Rica and Honduras are reporting 375 and 219 cases respectively.
“The government insists that people should not be afraid, that they should come out of their houses, and they have even organized massive public political events which state workers have been forced to attend,” said a health professional who spoke under condition of anonymity.
The government’s disregard toward the coronavirus safety guideline turned to the bizarre in March when Ortega’s wife and Vice President Rosario Murillo organized a public demonstration of faith, asking the public to march in prayer and solidarity for those affected by the pandemic, in an event named “Love in the time of COVID-19.”
“Nicaragua has not established, nor will it establish any type of quarantine,” declared Sonia Castro, presidential adviser on health issues, early last month.
Health Minister Carolina Dávila Murillo had previously stated that foreigners entering Nicaragua would face no limitations to their movement inside the Central American nation if they showed no symptoms, even if they had arrived from high risk countries identified by the World Health Organization.
The health minister was sacked on Wednesday with no explanation, and Ortega has not been seen in public for weeks. Murillo, who has become the only authorized spokeswoman on the issues related to the virus, appeared on television on Wednesday.
While she did not talk about the looming health crisis, she said Nicaragua is under divine protection. “Only God is enough,” she said.
The government’s lack of concern was also on display late last week, when it promoted a public march to express solidarity with Venezuela’s strongman Nicolás Maduro, after he and his top lieutenants were indicted in the United States on drug trafficking charges.
Many in Nicaragua following the news worldwide have voluntarily opted for staying at home, and some have begun to wear masks of the type being worn around the world to prevent the spread of the virus.
But government officials are discouraging people from wearing those, said activist Kenia Gutierrez, general secretary of Nicaragua’s Campesino Movement.
“They are doing all they can to project the idea that everything is normal in Nicaragua. Policemen and medical personnel are being told not to wear masks,” Gutierrez said.
Those wearing masks are sometimes yelled at, or ridiculed, by pro-government groups and people are being told that they need to keep their children in school. “Those that decided to pull their children out of school are being threatened, telling them their grades will be lowered or that their children will be held back a year,” she said.
The majority of those contacted in Nicaragua for this report asked not to be identified, saying Ortega has a long history of jailing and even torturing those protesting or speaking out against his rule.
But a group of a dozen doctors in Nicaragua came forward this week calling themselves the Multidisciplinary Scientific Committee and urged the government to adopt the recommendations of the World Health Organization and close the country’s borders, take steps to improve early detection, isolate patients, promote social distancing and ban large public events and shut down schools.
But the government has yet to follow these recommendations. Activists claim the only response so far has been a public disinformation campaign to hide the extent of the problem.
Briones, who works in the United States but keeps in touch with his colleagues in Nicaragua, said it was likely that his native country will see an exploding number of cases within two weeks given the highly contagious nature of the virus.
“The epidemiological studies are telling us that for each positive case that we see there are a number of undetected cases and that for each death there are about 800 real cases out there that officials need to go out and detect within your population,” Briones said.
“Now we know that these 800 real cases are going to double between every 3 to 7 1⁄2 days, and given that nothing is being done, we could see the number of cases spiral to hundreds of thousands within 15 days,” he said.
The Nicaragua government announced the country’s first coronavirus death a week ago.
A doctor working at a rural hospital said he is afraid that the pandemic is already spreading quickly in Nicaragua, given the otherwise inexplicably large number of pneumonia cases he has seen in the past few days.
“The odd thing is that we are in the middle of the dry season and Nicaragua is really a very hot country and it really doesn’t make sense to be seeing these numbers of pneumonia cases at this time of year,” said the doctor, who spoke under condition of anonymity.
The doctor, who explained that this type of condition is usually seen only during the country’s rainy season, said that the hospital where he works has received about 20 pneumonia cases starting the middle of last week.
“The number has been growing from one day to the next,” he said.