Covid-19 Prevention: Is Peru Doing the 'Right' or Is It 'Enough'?

Listen to the need or the quarantine regulations?

CNN has made a comparison and commented that the way Peru and Brazil have handled the Covid-19 pandemic is completely different. While Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has downplayed the dangers that the Corona virus has posed, Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra has declared a national state of emergency since March 15, requiring mandatory self-isolation and closing the country's borders. Despite the two "opposite paths", it is unexpected that the progression of the virus in these two locations is the same. Even in Peru, according to government figures, about 85% of intensive care beds equipped with ventilators are currently full, and people are worried about the prospect of hospitals falling into a state of overload. Dr. Alfredo Celis, who works at the University of Medicine of Peru, said: “The current situation is not just a medical emergency, but a medical disaster, that is, a situation where the pandemic exceeds the ability of the medical sector to respond.” Many people wonder, how can a country that responded so strongly and seriously to the pandemic end up like this?

Peru recorded nearly 124,000 positive cases of Covid-19. Photo: FNA

In search of an answer, Dr. Elmer Huerta, a Peruvian physician, said that the country's deep inequality may be partly to blame: "What I've learned is that this virus exposes the socio-economic situation of a place."

In fact, many poor Peruvians have no choice but to risk their health by leaving their homes to go to work, buy food, or even do banking. To take a simple example, according to the 2017 census, only 49% of Peruvian households have a refrigerator or freezer (in urban areas, the figure is 61%). This explains why many people need to go to the market every day to buy food and drinks, because they do not have the means to preserve food. The “paradox” pointed out by Dr. Huerta: “How can you comply with the rules of avoiding contact with others in a society where people cannot stay at home?”

On April 14, about a month after Peru implemented a mandatory stay-at-home policy and imposed a curfew, Peruvian TV showed footage of the area outside a market on the outskirts of Lima. Shoppers waited in line for hours, and others milled about. Most wore masks, but social distancing seemed impossible. “We have to endure this crowding because there is no other way,” said a woman waiting in line. “Otherwise, we would have no food. We have nothing to eat, so we go to the market.” That day, the number of positive coronavirus cases in Peru was 10,303. Today, more than a month later, that number has increased more than 10 times!

Unintended consequences

Peruvians have also been crowding banks to receive government aid to mitigate the impact of Covid-19. The stimulus package, which aims to help millions of families hit hard by the pandemic in Peru, is a good idea, but the way it is delivered has been poorly organized, according to Kristian Lopez Vargas, a Peruvian economist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In a report last year, Peru’s banking regulator said that only about 38% of adults had bank accounts. The lack of access to the financial system means that most recipients have to go to banks to get cash.

A funeral for Covid-19 victims at El Angel cemetery in Lima on May 21. Photo: Getty

“It’s not hard to predict how people will behave when they try to access this aid,” Lopez Vargas said. “But these policies are causing unnecessary harm by forcing people to gather in large crowds at banks.”

Not to mention that many Peruvians currently have a lifestyle and work that cannot be “reconciled” with social distancing regulations. As Mr. Lopez Vargas pointed out, more than 30% of households in this country live in crowded conditions, with at least 4 people having to sleep in one room. Not only that, according to Peru’s National Institute of Statistics and Information, more than 72% of the workforce belongs to the informal economy, and for those who earn their living in the informal sector, they cannot self-isolate and must go out to work to earn an income. This situation, combined with the need of millions of people to buy food and other goods in crowded markets, is no different from “an explosive mixture” in the context of a raging pandemic.

The root problem

Last weekend, President Vizcarra extended Peru’s state of emergency until the end of June, maintaining mandatory self-isolation and curfews across the country. This is the fifth extension of emergency measures. But this time, the extension comes with the resumption of some businesses, including beauty salons, food delivery, and dentistry.

Peru has imposed curfews and stay-at-home orders... to fight Covid-19. Photo: AA

Peru’s priorities for enforcing health guidelines also appear to have changed since the state of emergency was first declared. In early April, Vizcarra said that in the first weeks of stay-at-home orders, around 3,000 people were arrested for not complying with the measures. But earlier this week, the leader announced that the priority would now be on enforcing health regulations at markets across the country, adding that one of the lessons learned from the pandemic response was that people needed to change “certain social behaviors that are very damaging.” “This type of behavior is individualistic, selfish… ignoring what is happening around us, and that is exactly what has caused the situation we are in now, not only in Peru but all over the world,” Vizcarra said.

But from the perspective of medical professionals like Huerta or economists like Lopez Vargas, we need to be careful about placing too much responsibility on the shoulders of the people. Similar to them, many people believe that the underlying problems in Peru and many other countries exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic are not new. They need to be resolved once and for all, otherwise, all efforts to prevent the pandemic, no matter how reasonable and drastic, will be like a drop in the ocean./.