Venezuela warns about COVID-19 exponential growth in the region

In his analysis of the world’s situation in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro warned the world about the virus exponential growth in the American continent that mainly affects those countries where their neoliberal governments have taken preventative measures too late. He referred to the grim picture painted by presidents of countries such as Colombia, Brazil, the United States and Ecuador, where epidemiological surveillance is difficult due to the high spread curve and the lack of investment in health. «We have Colombia there. Yesterday, something happened there. If it happened in Venezuela, we would be in the headlines of all the world’s press. Colombia ran out of its only machine to conduct diagnosis tests due to the disinvestment in public healthcare by the oligarchy that has ruled Colombia. There is no outrage. Nobody says a word, and Colombia’s people, and public healthcare has been abandoned,» stressed the Venezuelan president. He explained that Ivan Duque’s government doesn’t only lack equipment, but also political will to protect the Colombian people. «They announce a number of cases, but they have exponential growth and do not have the ability, the kits, equipment or technology we do have to diagnose what is happening in Colombia. As of today, Colombia has announced 608 cases and 6 deaths. You have to take into account that they did not have a diagnosis machine for 48 hours. This leads to a brutal underregistration of cases,» he said. President Maduro pointed out that the Brazilian people share the same fate. President Jair Bolsonaro has underestimated COVID-19 as he described it as «just a little flu.» «Every day, Jair Bolsonaro says the craziest things and offends the Brazilian people, mayors and governors. Now he is calling on the people to break quarantine because he claims it is ‘just a little flu’, that people in Brazil are naturally immune to coronavirus and that if he catches coronavirus, he’ll overcome it. He downplays reality,» said Maduro. He showed on a map the situation in the United States, which became the world’s epicenter in the coronavirus crisis. «The United States has recorded almost 120,000 cases with a growth of 20,000 cases per day. In Brazil, Bolzonaro’s madness has caused the spread of the virus. Colombia, unbelievable. Ecuador causes us pain, the virus has spread there and the government does not know what to do; it abandoned its people,» he said. In the face of the COVID-19 exponential growth in the region, President Nicolás Maduro urged the Venezuelan people to exercise a sovereign defense to preserve life, and he called on them to continue observing the social, collective quarantine, use facemasks and take sanitation proper measures. Venezuela is developing his own protocol to fight COVID-19 by following the recommendations of the UN System and relies on its civic-military unity, and its organized working class and people that promote social awareness in the face of tis pandemic. Presidential Press Office