Covid-19 in Nicaragua

The pandemic got everybody surprised, nobody planned this, still, the world had and have to deal with it. The majority of countries decided to tackle the pandemic with several restrictions and precautions, like quarantine, social distancing, shutting down a lot of public affairs, etc.

What about Nicaragua?

Well, as I citizen I’m going to describe how the government reacted to the pandemic and what are they doing.

First, I would like to mention some context in case you don’t know. Nicaragua is governed by a leftist dictatorship, the socialist president has been in the power for fifteen years now, everything is controlled by the government, there is a political implication in almost everything public in this country.

Back when the virus was not entered, there were some rumors about if the virus was really out or not if the government was hiding the real situation, there were rumors about some cases in some hospitals.

After the first case officially was announced, the government said, everything is under control, there is no need to wear a mask, in fact, if you wore one you would've been considered part of the opposition. To sum up, they did not care about the virus.

In the following weeks, the population voluntarily took many restrictions like social distancing, mask-wearing, etc. There were rumors saying that a lot of cases were arising, a lot of people was in fact getting sicked, but the thing is that in the hospitals they were not testing the patients, the doctors were threatened to not talk anything about any case that might be related to the new virus.

The government kept organizing public affairs, the even made a big activity “receiving the virus”, the most stuping thing I’ve ever seen in my life, they promoted not to wear a mask, not to care, “Everything is under control” they used to say.

How much is a covid 19 test?

I know, this might sound crazy or even astonishing, but the government is charging $150 for each test, they are the only ones who could do that because they rejected the request to run tests from private laboratories.

Months later, they decided to change the strategy, as they saw many people were dying due to the virus, many of them part of the political party they professed. They started to make wearing-mask a requirement and washing hands as well.

About the numbers of people getting sicked and dying, they started reporting a couple of cases every week, claiming everything was under control, but all of a sudden a week they reported hundreds of new cases, a dramatic change.

With the vaccine, initially, they were saying they were in negotiations with Russia in order to make a deal and produce the Russian vaccine, later that just fade out.

Lately, they have announced the acquisition of some vaccines and they have been vaccinating people, they never announced any kind of plan though. Some people say they are following the same strategy as other countries, you know, elderly people, patients with chronic diseases, medical staff, all of those first.

Acknowledgment: I am just a citizen writing about what I have seen so far regarding the pandemic, I am not a physician or medical expert.

Thanks for reading.