VENEZUELANS DISTRUST STATE'S COVID-19 DATA

 VENEZUELANS DISTRUST STATE'S COVID-19 DATA

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOG - CINOPS BE GONE - THURS. JUNE 3, 2021

HEADLINE IN WALL STREET JOURNAL, A-16, THURS. JUNE 3, 2021

Preface:

    When I think of Venezuela, I see a tragedy that could have been avoided during the Trump administration. The Democrats could have persuaded Maduro to resign and then have free elections.

But they did not. Why? It would have been a victory for the people of Venezuela and President Trump.

    Thanks to lies, corruption and Cuban communist subversion, Maduro is still in power. Lies ARE the order of the day in America. It starts with President Biden. "He has created a problem for himself and for the Church" by saying he's a devoted Catholic. A devoted Catholic who is for abortion on demand and assisted suicide and doing away with the Hyde amendment is not a devoted Catholic. He is a liar.

    A MAN (A government) who says the border is closed; when it is not closed. We see it with our own eyes. AND STOP WAGING PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WITH THIS BORDER ATROCITY! HE IS A LIAR.

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   "On most days, Venezuela's authoritarian government reports a daily Covid-19 death toll of about 17 victims, a striking low number given that South America as a continent records the highest rate of the pandemic.

     But Venezuelan funeral-service operators say they regularly cremate at least six times more bodies a day than the official toll - a telling indicator because health authorities want those who have died of respiratory disease to be cremated rather than buried.

      Health-sector advocates and rights organization say Venezuela is greatly under-reporting the pandemic's toll in a country where the regime has long been accused of hiding and manipulating health data, arresting doctors who publicize deficiencies in hospitals and failing to report on epidemics to an international organizations.

    The country of 28 million officially has recorded 2,500 Co-19 deaths, a fraction of more than 180,000 lives lost in Peru, which has a slightly larger population. Some health experts say there could be 20 times more citizens dying daily from the virus than the government says, which could mean tens of thousands of fatalities since Covid-19 arrived.

     "People know that the number of cases the government announces every day doesn't reflect what they are seeing around them," said Marino Gonzales, a public health expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. "And they know there isn't a short-term solution. 

    Doctors United, an advocacy group says it has independently documented 580 deaths of healthcare professionals, five times the figure reported by the regime and topping the number of doctors and nurses who have died in  more populous Argentina.

 

    In a recent poll by the Caracas polling firm Meganalisis, 84% of respondents said they didn't believe the government's Covid-19 data, &  98% said they didn't know of anyone who had received a vaccine.

Fearing the care in hospitals that regularly lack water, electricity, oxygen tanks, and medicines, many Venezuelans infected with the corona virus, are quietly suffering and dying - at home, their cases never reported to authorities, said medical personnel and families.

 

    Meanwhile, the vaccinations campaign headed by the cash-strapped government of President Nicolas Maduro, which the U.S. calls an illegitimate dictatorship, [which is absolutely true] is so slow that the country's National Academy of Medicine, an independent institution considered an authority on healthcare matters, says it will take a decade to inoculate the country....

    Venezuela has received 2.7 million vaccines, Mr. Maduro has said, a fraction of what other Latin American countries have imported. He says the vaccination drive will increase this week, with shots given mainly to holders of a state-issued identification card that rights groups say is a tool for social control..... Without the vaccines and treatment for Covid-19, the country could become a home for new variants that could spread with migrants as they flee the country....

      "There's no way for us to know how many have actually died," said Maria Eugenia Landaeta, head of the infectious-disease department at Central University Hospital in Caracas. She said that her hospital conducts just 15 Covid-19 tests a day, down from 120 a year ago. "You have to justify every test in a report. It's slowed down everything." she said.

    The government's hard-line response to the pandemic hasn't helped. Last year, the intelligence agency Sebin rounded up those believed to be suffering from the illness and isolated them in vacant schools and hospitals. While that practice has been scaled back, it has made Venezuelans afraid making public they have Covid-19."   George H. Kubeck