Peru And Coronavirus-A Lingering Wave

PERU

A Lingering Wave

Surfers are hitting the surf in Peru.

“It was about time, no?” Alessandro Currarino told the Associated Press. “Peru has some of the best waves in the world and we need to take advantage of them.”

The fun comes after the beaches of the South American country were empty for months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Don’t think the return to normal means the danger has gone away, however. Peru recently confirmed more than 200,000 cases of the deadly virus, the second-most on the continent after Brazil.

Indeed, like its northern neighbor, Ecuador, the coronavirus has ravaged Peru even as surfers and others struggle to return to a semblance of normal. Gross domestic product contracted by 3.4 percent after President Martin Vizcarra ordered a 12-week lockdown in February, Agence France-Presse wrote. Recently, restrictions on non-contact sports like surfing were lifted.

The country is still tallying record death tolls, in part because, as Time magazine noted, Peruvians live and work in close contact with each other. A combination of economic and cultural factors makes it nearly impossible to social distance.

Outside the capital of Lima, anguished families wail and mourn in the Virgen de Lourdes cemetery, one of the biggest burial grounds in the world with more than one million tombs, reported Al Jazeera. Thousands of new plots have been created since the pandemic started to claim lives. Stray dogs roam the place.

At least 20 journalists who have been covering the spread and effects of the virus have died. Many didn’t have personal protective equipment as they visited hard-hit regions like Iquitos on the Amazon River in remote eastern Peru, the Guardian explained. Indigenous communities have been especially susceptible to the virus, reported the Chinese state-owned CGTN. At least 150 police officers have died, too, attempting to maintain public order.

Like in many other countries, the coronavirus has exposed the lack of adequate medical care in Peru as much as it has the frailties of the human body and spirit. Oxygen has become a symbol of the crisis. There is not enough of it. A black market in oxygen has thrived as desperate Peruvians pay exorbitant prices to save loved ones.

“People collapsed in the street, others dragging desperately ill relatives to the door of hospitals that won’t admit them, and distraught children asking why their parents were left to die,” wrote CNN.

The rate of increase in infections might be down now. And surfers might be back looking for the next great wave. But the trauma caused by a new virus will certainly linger here long after the sick become well.