(AFP) Nicaraguan medical unions on Monday called on the population to urgently adopt a voluntary quarantine to deal with the spread of COVID-19, which they believe is expanding and has collapsed hospitals, although the government “continues to deny it.”
Some 34 medical associations called for “urgently starting a quarantine on a voluntary basis to help reduce the impact” of covid-19, they said in a statement.
The call is to stay home for at least a month, go out only once a week to stock up, keep distance, wear face masks and masks, and constantly wash your hands. They also urge “temporary closure of nonessential businesses.”
The government has said that the pandemic “is under control” and has refused to establish restrictive “extreme” measures such as closing businesses or paralyzing public transport on the grounds that it would weaken the economy.
However, the Observatorio Ciudadano, made up of doctors and civil society, counted 3,725 suspicious infections and 805 deaths as of May 27, considerably more than the 759 cases and 35 deaths recognized by the Ministry of Health, which has not reported the completion of diagnostic tests.
Oenegé is considered an alternative source to the void of official information on the behavior of covid-19, and is made up of medical volunteers and community networks that collect information on “suspected cases” of coronavirus and other conditions.
Doctors called the situation “dramatic” and warned that it could “worsen in the coming days and weeks with dire consequences at home” if steps are not taken to contain the pandemic.
The exponential increase in COVID-19 “has caused a collapse in the public and private health system (…) with saturated hospitals, beds, medicines and essential products such as oxygen are lacking,” according to the doctors.
To this is added that dozens of doctors and health workers have been infected with the virus with an “important” death toll, which has caused work overload, physical and emotional exhaustion in this personnel, they added.
The Superior Council of Private Enterprise supported the initiative of the medical union and called “companies in the non-essential business field that have the conditions to do so, to close their operations while reducing the contagion rate.”
Social, political and human rights organizations supported the doctors’ call, while the government has not spoken.
The government of Nicaragua, the second poorest country in Latin America with 6.2 million inhabitants, not only avoided taking action against the coronavirus, but also promoted massive acts and protests, contrary to the recommendations of international organizations.
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