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Ecuador Coronavirus Feature photo
COVID-19
Bodies in the Streets: IMF Imposed Measures Have Left Ecuador Unable to Cope
with Coronavirus
Ecuador is near collapse under the strain of the coronavirus after the
government of Lenin Moreno stripped state services nearly bare at the behest of
the IMF.
by Alan Macleod
April 13th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
If you are using one of the many coronavirus incidence trackers, the Pacific
country of Ecuador does not seem to be particularly badly affected by COVID-19.
Officially, the country has less than 7,500 cases and 333 deaths. But everybody
knows this number is nonsense, including President Lenín Moreno, who freely
admitted that authorities were collecting over 100 dead bodies a day from
Guayaquil city alone, the epicenter of the pandemic tormenting his country.
Ecuador’s limited state has essentially collapsed under the strain of COVID-19,
with dozens of videos circulating showing dead bodies left in the streets, with
no one to collect them. The country has already run out of coffins, so corpses
are buried in cardboard boxes or simply left in trucking containers. A recent
credible estimate, based on data gleaned from cemeteries and funeral homes,
puts Guayaquil’s death toll at 7,600 – almost that of New York, a city four
times its size. Thus, more people have died from the virus in the last week in
Guayaquil than China’s cumulative total since November. Ecuador’s minister of
health resigned last month, condemning the government’s inaction.
“The situation in Ecuador is very fucked up. I don’t even have the means to
[explain in] English all of what’s happening. The new Minister of Health is an
incredible idiot. Coronavirus or not this country is in big trouble with this
wildly incompetent government,” said MintPress contributor Camila Escalante, a
resident of Ecuador.
Like many countries, Ecuador is suffering from a severe shortage of medical
equipment. Images show doctors and nurses wearing trash bags not only as capes
but for masks and hoods as well.
However, a far greater problem than a lack of equipment is a lack of doctors.
“I have my [sick] dad at home, because no hospital is able to treat him or
anyone, just here in El Ceibo. But, believe me, people are dying. There’s no
medical personnel, no nurses. There’s no one working. There’s like three
people,” said Caesar Figueroa, a nurse in Guayaquil.
Trust me, I’ve been inside. The situation is precarious. There is no gloves, no
masks. There’s nothing. All of Ecuador is a country of nothing. There’s no
government. There’s no president.”
Camila
@camilapress
The situation in Ecuador is very fucked up. I don't even have the means to
English all of what's happening. The new Minister of Health is an incredible
idiot. Coronavirus or not this country is in big trouble with this wildly
incompetent government.
196
12:56 PM - Apr 12, 2020
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Since his election in 2017, President Moreno has made a priority of attacking
the relatively generous welfare state measures adopted by his predecessor
Rafael Correa. Moreno had been Correa’s vice president, and campaigned on the
ticket of extending and deepening Correa’s democratic socialist agenda.
However, almost immediately after he took office, he began to undo his work.
In 2019, on orders from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF),
he slashed the country’s health budget by a staggering 36 percent. Moreno also
rescinded Ecuador’s support for Australian publisher Julian Assange and was
promptly rewarded with a $4.2 billion loan from the IMF.
That Moreno would accept any money from an organization with such a dark
history in Latin America confirmed to many his real constituency is in
Washington, not with the people. Ecuador spent much of the last four decades in
debt peonage to the IMF; by 2005 it was spending 47 percent of its entire
government income paying back usurious interest on loans long since paid off, a
debt trap that ensured many countries in the global south could never seek an
independent path.
The Assange Poop Smear Was Concocted to Cover Ecuador’s $4.2 B IMF Loan
Now that Julian Assange is in the hands of authorities thanks to Ecuador's
Lenin Moreno, media lapdogs are scraping from the bottom of the barrel to smear
WikiLeaks
MintPress News | Alexander Rubinstein | Apr 22, 2019
While leaders in Washington have showered him with praise, Moreno has carried
out a generalized crackdown on dissent, forcing Correa into exile. This has,
according to Escalante, helped to fuel the coronavirus fire. “A lot of the most
competent leaders this country had, were forced to flee, or fled when it became
known that political persecution was going to become the norm here. Everything
is subject to censorship; doctors are afraid to speak out; reporters are afraid
to do their job,” she said. “Imagine being a reporter in Ecuador and doing very
little reporting on…Ecuador. Well, political persecution became the reality
here in 2017 and it is a matter of time before they start rounding people up
for their reporting. As a foreigner, it’s not worth the risk.”
Like other U.S.-backed states Brazil and Bolivia, Moreno’s Ecuador expelled
around 1,000 Cuban doctors working inside the country, constituting the
backbone of its public healthcare system. “When they left, there were no
specialists to replace them,” said Ricardo Ramírez, a retired physician in
Guayaquil. “It’s one important factor why we can’t provide an adequate response
to the virus now.” In contrast, anti-imperialist countries in the region like
Venezuela and Cuba itself have fared far better at tackling the crisis: only 27
people have died in those two countries so far.
Meet the Americans Studying Medicine on the Cuban Government’s Dime
Cuba has been paying Americans through a decades-old program to go to medical
school, return home and serve underprivileged communities.
MintPress News | Alan Macleod | Mar 31
The coronavirus was an uncontrollable act of God. Governmental response to the
crisis, however, is not. The Moreno administration’s decisions, both before and
during the pandemic are the prime factor in why Ecuador might be the world
epicenter of the virus. It has been an unmitigated disaster for the population.
But, given his close ties to Washington, it is far from clear whether Lenín
Moreno cares at all about that.