Briefing

8,010 COVID-19 Cases in Venezuela

The reality of coronavirus bursts the regime’s bubble, which keeps talking about the “Colombian virus” and blames the patients; Spain and Canada insist on fair electoral conditions

Naky Soto

Photo: Victoria News

  • Venezuela surpassed 8,000 cases of COVID-19 in three days, after Nicolás reported 317 new cases on Wednesday. The total of cases they’ve admitted to is 8,010. He also reported four deaths (two in Táchira state, one in Zulia state and one in Lara state), for a total of 75. Nicolás called the pandemic “the Colombian virus” several times, trying to blame returning Venezuelan migrants for the infection rate. According to him, this exponential phase only happens because of this variable, despite the fact that “local” infections are higher than “imported” cases. About this: he didn’t get an answer when asking if the cases from the Dominican Republic swam to Venezuela. “The virus is going around, it’s up to you if you go out to the street to get it. I’m doing my part, you do yours,” said the empathic statesman, who also admitted he’s using the quarantine to watch series and Netflix movies in a country where only one of ten citizens can afford it. 
  • Deputy in exile José Manuel Olivares warned about the high percentage of ICU beds in use and the ERs of the country’s main hospitals. He reported that half of the ERs are at capacity and that ICU beds and life support are at 40%. He warned that the accelerated contagion rate can collapse capacity. Olivares complained about Nicolás buying voting machines and not ICU vents or respirators, and insisted that there are more deaths from COVID-19 than the regime admits to (130 deaths, not 71, he mentioned cases that aren’t part of the official figures yet). Táchira governor Laidy Gómez asked the Health Ministry to start information protocols that have been suspended since April, speed PCR tests up and update data, because there were two deaths in the state. 
  • Several regional journalists reported that Zulia governor Omar Prieto and his family have presented mild respiratory difficulties, which hasn’t been confirmed by the authorities. They also said that there are kidney patients with COVID-19 who’ve been waiting for dialysis treatment for a week at Maracaibo’s University Hospital. Diosdado Cabello announced that he had to suspend his show because of allergies. This isn’t the first time he “gets sick” and then reappears using the message of “having defeated” whatever he had. 
  • Venezuela accumulated a 508.47% inflation in the first six months of 2020, after closing at 19.5% in June, said the National Assembly on Wednesday. “We’re seeing how the increase of prices in Venezuela is accelerating,” said deputy José Guerra when he presented the Consumer Price Index. Guerra assured that this monthly increase “is closely tied to the depreciation the bolivar has had in the last few weeks”. “The weight of devaluation is starting to be felt as an increase of prices,” he emphasized after saying that the bolivar depreciated by 3% everyday compared to the dollar. Guerra showed the inflation rate in 20 countries in Latin America and highlighted that all of them combined are 25%, a lot lower than Venezuela’s, which is also the country with the lowest wage of the region, two dollars a month. We’re still in hyperinflation. 
  • Nicolás’s regime uses sanctions as the excuse for lack of food and medicine, an argument that’s dismantled after the confiscation of a shipment of 81 vehicles in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Some of the cars are luxury vehicles, and the shipment is worth around 3.2 million dollars. Authorities determined they were being illegally exported to Venezuela, violating U.S. commercial law, bought through middlemen in illegal transactions. The operation’s legal framework is Trump’s political and commercial offensive against Nicolás’s regime. 
  • Enrique Castells, appointed by Juan Guaidó to manage Venezuela’s mineral resources, denounced that Nicolás tried to take 25 million euros in funds from Corporación Venezolana de Guayana from Spain to Russia. Castells assured that Nicolás tried to close CVG bank accounts in Spain and bring the money to Moscow. “Right now, the money is blocked even though Spanish law is clear. The power is held by the sole association’s manager and that’s us,” he assured. He said that they filed a complaint against the men appointed by Nicolás to the CVG “who tried using fake documents from the Venezuelan government to move money to Russia.” The CVG president appointed by Guaidó, in charge of Venezuela’s natural resources, filed the suit advised by Spanish law firm Cremades & Calvo Sotelo in order to get access to CVG funds in the rest of the world. 
  • Spanish Foreign minister Arancha González Laya said yesterday that the key part of Venezuelan legislative elections, is that they’re “democratic”, because otherwise they wouldn’t be recognized or considered legitimate by the international community. 
  • Juan Guaidó participated in the 20th meeting of the Comunidad Andina de Naciones and said in his intervention that after 14 years out of the institution, he’s starting the process so Venezuela can be part of the community again: “Venezuela leaving the CAN was something that never should have happened,” said Guaidó. Venezuela lost so much because of that whim. 
  • Canadian Foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne said on Twitter that TSJ’s ruling against Voluntad Popular “is another flagrant violation of democratic rights by Maduro’s regime.” The International Socialist Organization expressed its rejection of TSJ’s actions against several opposition political parties. 
  • “Maduro’s race to destroy democracy continues, with the latest efforts to control opposition parties, another sign of the illegitimate regime’s plan to guarantee that the next elections in Venezuela aren’t free or fair,” said Michael G. Kozak,the U.S. under secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. 
  • Nicolás’s Foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, sent a letter to his counterpart in Cape Verde, reiterating that Alex Saab’s is a special agent of his regime and he must be released. Arreza criticized the lack of information regarding Saab’s case and he demanded a meeting with ambassador Alejandro Correa. 
  • There have been over 12 million COVID-19 cases and 548,800 deaths in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. has had over 3,053,000 confirmed cases and 132,277 deaths. Brazil, the second country with the highest number of cases in the world, has had 1.7 million cases and 67,964 passings. Peru has had 312,911 cases and 11,133 deaths, Mexico broke a sad record on Wednesday,  with 6,995 new cases, for a total of 275,003 cases and 32,726 deaths. 
  • Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador flattered his American counterpart, Donald Trump, on their first meeting, with trade and commerce at its center, leaving out the tougher parts of their relationship, like immigration or the wall on their border. As the populist he is, AMLO thanked Trump for treating his country with understanding and respect, choosing to ignore the circumstances of millions of undocumented Mexicans, who are refugees on the border and disappear on the war against drugs. Left-wing press has been having a heart attack with the news and that’s giving me a laugh.
Briefing

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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