Coronavirus

Coronavirus 

Venezuela confirms first two cases of virus

CARACAS — Venezuela confirmed its first two cases of the novel coronavirus Friday, raising immediate alarm over the question of how an economically pulverized nation with a broken health-care system will manage to cope with the global pandemic.

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced that the two patients who had tested positive were Venezuelan nationals — a 41-year-old woman who had recently returned from the United States, Italy and Spain, and a 52-year-old man who had recently traveled to Spain.

“Both cases have been completely isolated,” Rodriguez said, adding that the socialist government is working to locate passengers on their flights, as well as other individuals who might have been in contact with them.

Large public gatherings, she said, would be prohibited — something that could complicate the Venezuelan opposition’s attempts to oust President Nicolás Maduro, in part through street protests. Cinemas and museums will also be closed, she said.

Medical experts in Venezuela have warned that the country is completely unprepared for an outbreak. According to the Global Health Security Index, Venezuela’s health system is ranked among the worst in the world in its capacity to detect, quickly respond and mitigate a pandemic.

The average hospital in Venezuela went more than 300 hours per month without electricity last year. Eight out of ten hospitals reported water supply disruptions every week, according to a recent national survey. Doctors have decried the broken equipment, lack of hygiene and scarcity of medicines at hospitals as contributing factors in patient fatalities.

Venezuela’s neighbors, particularly Colombia, which has absorbed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants in recent years, has warned of a potential new wave of “medical migrants” from Venezuela carrying the coronavirus and who could overwhelm its already stressed health-care system. Colombian authorities have recently installed heat-detecting cameras at the major migrant crossing points near the city of Cúcuta to identify migrants with fever entering the country

But the economic shock we face today – a ruptured international supply chain and, soon, millions able to work only from home – demands innovative thinking that is more in tune with our digital age. An industrial policy, backed up by fiscal firepower, could accelerate the workplace revolution that is already under way: from making business decisions via teleconferencing to the provision of online education, health and other services. Thus allowing millions to continue to work, study, organise their lives and make a living from home.

Yet no individual initiative will substitute for a collective declaration that, working together, the world’s governments will do whatever it takes. Coronavirus will not be the last, nor the worst, pandemic. But if the Manhattan Project could bring people together in the 1940s to create the most lethal weapon in human history, surely we can come together, in the 21st century, to save both lives and the livelihood of millions. We may not be able to repeat Roosevelt’s New Deal-era promise that there is nothing to fear but fear itself, but confidence in the future can be regained only by bold international actions that build confidence today.

• Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010

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