By Laurence Blair and Cindy Jiménez Bercerra in La Paz
Despite imposing an early lockdown, containment may be unravelling amid poverty, an underprepared health system and a bitter political standoff
When Pedro Flores and a group of fellow doctors arrived in the Beni, Bolivia‘s tropical northern province, at the end of May, they knew the crisis caused by coronavirus would be severe. But what they found still left them shaken.
“The health system, public and private, collapsed,” said Flores. Many doctors in the regional capital of Trinidad fell ill. Other medical staff, terrified, locked themselves in at home or fled to remote farmhouses. As critically ill patients multiplied, the death toll began to climb.
Source: Bolivia in danger of squandering its head start over coronavirus
Category: Bolivia, Coronavirus outbreak, Americas, World news
