ok so it has been a long time coming, but let's do a thread about Venezuela, Maduro and COVID19, because things are weird and not looking good but not for the reasons you imagine

We started the quarantine officially on March 13, when the first official cases for COVID19 were acknowledged by the Government 2 people that traveled to Europe(specifically Spain and Italy)/USA

a lot of fear started to rise but people actually decided to obey the quarantine, most likely not because it was mandated, but actually out of fear to contract the disease, because Venezuela has a HUGE problem on its healthcare center

if you have any idea of the literal horror stories I've seen, been told and actually lived, you would begin to understand why a lot of people decided to actually stay home, the healthcare system here is broken into 2 tiers the first is the public healthcare system

and honestly while it always had it's issues, in the last 15 years those issues were absolutely multiplied by infinity, to the point that a member of my Family who was told to go home and actually died because there were no chemotherapy supplies

or could even accept them into the hospital because there were no beds available due to being overcrowded and whole wings of the hospital were shut down due to those rooms being a health hazard to patients inside them

obviously Corruption has completely drained the system out of resources, to the point that the government on a national broadcast reopened a single elevator in an hospital that 3 days later was nonfunctioning again, yeah google it

2nd point being private institutions or private clinics:

OK, welcome to the reality of living in Venezuela, if you want private care, you have to paid in foreign currency (US$ or Euros) or its equivalent in the local currency

imagine this scenario, about 70% of the working population here earn minimum wage, which is about 450K a month, that sounds like a lot doesn't it? well the exchange rate from the Venezuelan Central bank being 129K local currency = 1 US$ you can check here http://bcv.org.ve 

now imagine even if the private clinics don't overprice you, you just can't pay for the materials needed for anything here, you live with about 3-4 US$ a month and you have to make it count

oh and try to remember we live in a hyper inflation country, so that US$ to local currency gap, it only gets wider as the time passes, but it gets worse, it is literally impossible to exchange $ at the official rate because it is so distorted from it is behind the curve

so all business take the prices from other indicators like instagram pages like Monitor dolar, yes Instagram pages have better grasp on what the real exchange is than the central bank, Venezuela is a dystopia, nothing is as it should

so real healthcare is only available to the One Percent people here, basically, and health insurance is the same hole in the floor as trying to pay for yourself any treatment, basically not an option

The result is that if there are fears of a pandemic and people have the chance of just staying in home and avoid the whole thing, those who can afford to do so, will absolutely do so because getting sick here means you're dead, but as we all know that opens another can of worms

unemployment levels here have always been high, until the government decided that if you put a blanket on the street to sell shit, you're not unemployed, and of course no one here can actually live off minimum wage so everybody who can do stuff on the side does

so your real income doesn't come from your regular wage, but off side work, that you can no longer do, and most people needed to go out and work daily in order to have enough to provide for their homes, so that is not an option now

oh yeah but the Venezuelan Government has been providing food for basically free to most poor people in the country, well good luck trying to feed 3 or 4 people with 2 Kilograms of Corn Flour, 2 Kilograms of Rice, 2 Kilograms of Pasta, 1 Kilogram of beans, and a can of sardines

and that has to last enough for a month, if you are lucky it will also have 1 Liter of vegetable oil that is so bad that it literally boils at 60C, meaning you can't use it for cooking, maybe for salad dressing, and 1 Kilogram of powdered "milk" they don't even say its milk

it is labeled as a "dairy product" not as milk

but let's change the subject, how about the curve you might ask, well according to our government we are barely at a little over 200 recognized cases, while some might disagree about the real numbers, the reality is that the real numbers might not be that far from that

the reality is that we have not peaked, but the good part is that the quarantine started early enough to actually make the curve go as slow as possible, so that is good news, private institutions and news sites report numbers not very high