– We’re suffering. Every single day there are five, six, seven masses for the dead. It’s all about illness and death, the Catholic priest Altamirano Guevara despairs Reuters.
The small town of 40,000 inhabitants is in crisis. The news agency Reuters reports that the city has been hit by the worst corona outbreak of all time. They write that the city is on the country’s extreme alert “together with a few other cities, all far away from the big cities.
– The hospital has collapsed. This is the worst moment. Many people have died, the general secretary of the local hospital, Daniel Idrogo, told Reuters.
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– Own flesh and blood
The city is located in the Peruvian hinterland, with poor connections. The nearest intensive care unit at the hospital is a three-hour drive away.
According to Reuters, relatives of the sick stand outside the local hospital and pray for better care for their loved ones. The chances of getting oxygen help should be small, and intensive care units are non-existent.
– I have experienced this with my own flesh and blood, because my sister died of corona. Several colleagues and neighbors have also passed away, Betty Campos Ochoa explains to Reuters, who herself works at Chota’s small, local hospital.
After this, sales exploded
Died without treatment
A failing health care system has not been able to handle the crisis. The country has also introduced a curfew, so far without being able to reduce the infection.
The death toll in the city is still unclear.
Many patients are said to have died without treatment, and the numbers of deaths from covid-19 are also deficient.
“Nations with good economies have been able to record most corona deaths because they have good access to tests,” epidemiologist Mateo Prochazka told Reuters, who himself has been part of the nation’s assessment of corona management.
It is estimated that 1 in 200 Peruvians has died of covid-19. Much of the reason is congested healthcare, and poor access to respirators and oxygen tanks. The shortage led to higher prices, and has put several families in debt.
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In the Cajamarca region where Chota is located, there are only three hospitals that have intensive care units, despite a population of over one million. That is according to figures from local health authorities.
– The doctors say we need a respirator, but there are none available in Chota, and that is worrying. There is no solution for us, the mother of Enrique Peralta Linares, who has been admitted to Chota Hospital with corona, despairs to Reuters.
Worst of all
While infection rates in many European countries are declining, the whole of Peru is experiencing a wave of infections, and they are not alone in South America.
Uruguay and Paraguay currently top the statistics for the most deaths per capita. Argentina has 80,000 deaths and is fighting a new wave, Brazil is approaching 470,000 deaths, while the infection is also spreading rapidly in Bolivia and Colombia.
Foreign tourists – No thanks
But at the top of the list of deaths per capita is Peru, after the country compared the number of deaths during the corona period with previous periods.
Worse than both Brazil and India, which have been massively affected by the pandemic.
Brazil’s health care system has long been on its knees, and President Jair Bolsonaro has been largely blamed, after refusing to shut down the country.
In India, a procession to take a bath in the Ganges River during a festival in April was called “the biggest super-spreading event in the history of the pandemic.”
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