Venezuela’s despot touts a herbal quack cure for covid-19
Meanwhile, hospitals lack water and vaccines are scarce
THE BLACK market in Venezuela has taken a dark turn in recent weeks. In online chat groups, where weary Caracas residents trade everything from detergent to US dollars, covid-19 is the dominant theme. Emotional pleas for medicine are commonplace. The price of oxygen tanks and masks is soaring. So too is rental space for the large refrigerators needed to preserve bodies in the tropical heat, as waiting lists for burials and cremations grow.
Switch on state television and it is another world. Every Sunday Nicolás Maduro, the dictator, addresses the nation. Wards of pristine unused hospital beds are displayed. Venezuela’s relatively low official death count is contrasted with carnage elsewhere. Mr Maduro labels the P.1 variant that is spreading across South America the “Bolsonaro mutation”, blaming an uptick in cases on Brazil’s populist president.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "Thyme, the great healer"
From the May 1st 2021 edition
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