By Stephanie Taladrid @ NewYorker.com, May 29

[....] “We were told that the cure to the coronavirus was isolation,” she said. “But, in a country where there is no food, no water, no light, no nothing, how are you supposed to isolate?” In mid-March, when President Nicolás Maduro ordered a lockdown, she and many other Venezuelans carried on with their normal lives. That meant going to the market every day to find whatever they could afford, if anything. Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in the world—bolivares are practically worthless, and most prices are in U.S. dollars. “A kilo of flour that today costs two hundred and ten thousand bolivares will be two hundred and fifteen thousand tomorrow,” González told me. Eggs now cost more than the monthly minimum wage [....]

[....] It’s increasingly clear that Venezuela’s regime is using the pandemic to strengthen its hold on power. Earlier this month, the Academy of Physical, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences issued a report accusing the government of underreporting infections. It warned of an estimated one thousand to four thousand cases, per day, as early as June. Days later, Diosdado Cabello, the Vice-President of Venezuela’s ruling party, dismissed the report and announced an investigation into the academy’s work. Appearing on his weekly state-television program, “Beat Them with a Club,” Cabello declared the report “an invitation to state security bodies to summon” its authors. Maduro’s nationwide lockdown has largely thwarted people’s ability to hold mass demonstrations. In a show of force, the military is enforcing quarantine measures and overseeing hospitals. More than a dozen health-care workers and journalists have been detained for speaking publicly about missing supplies or questioning the official infection count. As the pandemic spreads, the Trump Administration has continued its aggressive use of economic, legal, and military pressure on Venezuela—first by tightening sanctions, and recently by deploying naval destroyers off the country’s coast.

The country’s health-care system is in disarray after years of mismanagement and corruption. Shortages of medicine, supplies, and personal protective equipment are endemic [....]