Ñopo said the historic lack of investment in public institutions left Peru vulnerable in the face of the pandemic. “These are not failures of the healthcare system, these are the consequences of a neglected healthcare system over decades,” he said. A huge financial stimulus package worth $26bn – about 12% of Peru’s GDP – which included roughly 7m payments to poor families reportedly failed to reach more than half of them.ĭespite having Latin America’s lowest debt-to-GDP ratio before the pandemic began, Peru has long had one of the region’s lowest levels of public investment in education and healthcare, which has fatally undermined its ability to respond to the pandemic, said Huerta. Tens of thousands fled the capital to their rural home towns on foot as the lockdown left them jobless and unable to pay rent. While figures from the Google mobility project indicated a significant reduction in movement in Peru, the quarantine may not have been as effective as intended. For these kind of workers there is no lockdown,” he said. “Some may be living the entrepreneurial dream but many are Uber drivers. Ñopo pointed out that despite Peru’s fast-growing economy more than 70% of its labour force work in the informal or unregulated economy and about 40% are self-employed, the highest rate in the region. “But we forgot the objective was not just to minimise our journeys outside but also to maximize our social distancing.” “We are so proud of our culinary tradition, our cooking methods and the freshness of our ingredients,” said Hugo Ñopo, a lead researcher at Grade, a development thinktank. In Lima, the city hailed as South America’s gastronomic capital, food markets have emerged as major hubs of infection, as spot tests showed most traders were asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19. The virus has killed 180 prison inmates and 12 guards – and also claimed the lives of dozens of doctors and nurses. More than 4,000 police officers have contracted the virus and 82 have died. The coronavirus has also hit those on the frontline of the pandemic. In one Shipibo-Konibo community living in Cantagallo, a riverside settlement of wooden shacks in Lima, tests revealed 72%, or 476 people, had Covid-19 after three died from the virus. “For the poorest of the poor, what can they do?”Īs elsewhere, the coronavirus has hit the poorest hardest. “For the communities further in the forest, it’s as if they were sentenced to die,” he added. “We feel abandoned by the central government and ignored by the local government,” said Hilario-Manenima, an indigenous Shipibo-Konibo leader. “It’s just heartbreaking,” said Miguel Hilario-Manenima, a local university professor, who said Pucallpa’s public hospitals had shut down and speculation had quintupled the price of an oxygen cylinder. Photograph: Cesar Vonbancels/AFP via Getty Images
Relatives of coronavirus patients wait to recharge oxygen tanks for their loved ones at the regional hospital in Iquitos on 14 May. Covid-19 hit Peru’s largest Amazon city, Iquitos, with deadly force before spreading to Pucallpa, on the country’s eastern border with Brazil.
“The fact that on the eighth week of confinement you have thousands of people who are positive means that those people got the virus while the country was in lockdown – which means they did not respect the law.”ĭeadly outbreaks on Peru’s northern coast and Amazon regions – where social distancing was routinely flouted – laid bare the gaping holes in Peru’s chronically underfunded healthcare system. “But the problem was people’s behaviour,” he said. “It was the first country in Latin America to respond with a lockdown. “Peru’s response was right on time,” said Elmer Huerta, a Peruvian doctor and trusted broadcaster on public health matters for Latin American audiences. In the past week, the number of new Covid-19 cases logged each day rose from more than 3,000 to above 4,000 a day, hitting a record 4,550 new cases on Tuesday. But while Peru’s numbers could reflect increased and better targeted testing rather than an underlying trend, the jump in new cases is undeniable. Vizcarra said on Friday that Peru had carried out 600,000 coronavirus tests – “more than any other country in the region”.
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