Independent workers devastated by quarantine
Picture/Nordcapstudio.
ASUNCION, May 15, 2020 - Quarantine protected health, but destroyed the economy and the media were not exempted. In May, several companies dismissed or suspended more than 100 workers, some of them with many years of experience. In smaller media, the number of people affected is difficult to establish, but the truth is that independent workers, those who through commercial supports acquire their spaces on radio mainly, are devastated or, at best, suspended, waiting for the return of sports activities, when the virus dissipates, which may not be before September. But there are still fears regarding winter in the country (June, July, August), since it is a period when the usual respiratory diseases can add to the coronavirus, a cocktail that nobody wants to experience.
Paraguay, aware that its public health structure was not in a position to respond to a wave of contagions (as had already been demonstrated in the face of the dengue epidemic - a disease transmitted by mosquitoes), imposed the measures of social distancing, closing of borders, and home confinement, already in the first week of March.
What seemed like nonsense, ended up becoming an effective and timely barrier against the globalised enemy, which gave the government the necessary time to equip hospitals, expand them and acquire equipment for health personnel and incorporate, above all, units of intensive therapy, at a high cost of international indebtedness, of which future generations will have to take charge, but avoiding what might otherwise have been a true national tragedy.
As of May 10, the number of those infected reached 700 and the number of the deceased reached 10, with a high percentage of those infected corresponding to Paraguayans who worked in Spain, Argentina and Brazil, who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic and were forced to return to the country in groups that were dangerously crowded at the border posts before they could enter the national territory and be taken to quarantine centres, where many infections occurred.
Cases of viral circulation in the community without connection to imported ones are very few and this generates favourable prospects.
Paraguay, aware that its public health structure was not in a position to respond to a wave of contagions (as had already been demonstrated in the face of the dengue epidemic - a disease transmitted by mosquitoes), imposed the measures of social distancing, closing of borders, and home confinement, already in the first week of March.
What seemed like nonsense, ended up becoming an effective and timely barrier against the globalised enemy, which gave the government the necessary time to equip hospitals, expand them and acquire equipment for health personnel and incorporate, above all, units of intensive therapy, at a high cost of international indebtedness, of which future generations will have to take charge, but avoiding what might otherwise have been a true national tragedy.
As of May 10, the number of those infected reached 700 and the number of the deceased reached 10, with a high percentage of those infected corresponding to Paraguayans who worked in Spain, Argentina and Brazil, who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic and were forced to return to the country in groups that were dangerously crowded at the border posts before they could enter the national territory and be taken to quarantine centres, where many infections occurred.
Cases of viral circulation in the community without connection to imported ones are very few and this generates favourable prospects.
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