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Source: https://elpais.com/sociedad/2020-06-...-pandemia.html
The covid-19 invoices Ortega government officials who denied and minimized the pandemic
Ministers, deputies, police, merchants and sympathizers related to the Administration have been infected despite their disbelief at the virus
one
Wilfredo Miranda
Managua - Jun 04, 2020 - 07:51 CDT
In early March, some liberal deputies arrived at the Nicaraguan Parliament with their faces covered by masks. Two legislators from President Daniel Ortega's party, the media Edwin Castro and Wilfredo Navarro, immediately mocked their colleagues during the legislative session. Deputy Castro, head of the Sandinista caucus, went further. He got up from his seat, pinned the meme of an astronaut to the screen of his mobile and showed it throughout the chamber to mock the fear of the pandemic. The Sandinistas laughed out loud. Three months after that episode, in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak in this Central American country, Castro was hospitalized with symptoms of the virus. A cousin and parliamentary advisor to legislator Navarro, Roberto Moreira, died of covid-19.
Castro was hospitalized at the Military Hospital in Managua, and has since disappeared from Parliament. While Navarro went from minimizing the covid-19 constantly on official television to "fumigating even the sandwiches that are served" in his office, according to the liberal deputy Maximino Rodr?guez, one of those who arrived with a mask in plenary in March . Castro and Navarro are not the only faithful to the Ortega Government affected by covid-19. In the last month, more than twenty officials who denied and minimized the danger of the coronavirus have died or were infected.
The list includes more Sandinista deputies, as well as prominent public officials: ministers, mayors, police commissioners, economic advisers and even the director for Nicaragua before the Inter-American Development Bank (CABEI), the economist Armando Navarrete.
Vice President Rosario Murillo has revealed, drop by drop, that some officials and members of the Sandinista party have died. "Their legacy remains, their courage, and above all that love with which they served the Nicaraguan people at all times," said the first lady on Tuesday in reference to the deceased. Murillo made the announcement on the rise of local and community contagion of the virus, warned by local health personnel and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), but which the Government denies. Independent estimates warn that in Nicaragua there are more than 4,000 positive cases and 980 deaths, against the 1,118 confirmed and 46 deaths reported so far by the Central American country's Ministry of Health.
Murillo did not attribute the deaths in his ranks to the coronavirus, thus following the policy of "disguising" the deaths related to the pandemic under other diseases, specialists and doctors have denounced. Two senior Sandinista officials stood out in Murillo's speech. First, the telecommunications minister Orlando Castillo, sanctioned by the United States in 2019 "for censoring the media." And second, the mayor of the city of Masaya Orlando Noguera, who led part of the brutal repression against the citizens of that town during the 2018 anti-government protests.
Both Castillo and Noguera died this week in hospital wards intended for the exclusive care of patients with covid-19 symptoms. Various medical sources confirmed that officials suffered from complicated clinical pictures and one of them was intubated to aid his breathing. Despite this, Vice President Murillo did not recognize the infections. In the city of Masaya, 30 kilometers south of Managua, Mayor Noguera was expressly buried, as established by the protocol for deaths associated with the pandemic.
"A divine punishment"
Although the express burial confirmed the rumor that Noguera was infected with covid-19, what prevailed for the inhabitants of Masaya were the festivities. While gravediggers dressed in protective suits buried the mayor, bombs and rockets were exploited by citizens who suffered the repression, commanded by Noguera in 2018, according to human rights organizations. An inhabitant of Masaya, who launched firecrackers for the death of the mayor, assured this newspaper that "covid-19 did the justice that all my brothers killed in 2018 could not have in this country."
The deaths and infections of all Sandinista officials and sympathizers - who are becoming known thanks to medical or family leaks - are interpreted by a large part of the population.
The covid-19 invoices Ortega government officials who denied and minimized the pandemic
Ministers, deputies, police, merchants and sympathizers related to the Administration have been infected despite their disbelief at the virus
one
Wilfredo Miranda
Managua - Jun 04, 2020 - 07:51 CDT
In early March, some liberal deputies arrived at the Nicaraguan Parliament with their faces covered by masks. Two legislators from President Daniel Ortega's party, the media Edwin Castro and Wilfredo Navarro, immediately mocked their colleagues during the legislative session. Deputy Castro, head of the Sandinista caucus, went further. He got up from his seat, pinned the meme of an astronaut to the screen of his mobile and showed it throughout the chamber to mock the fear of the pandemic. The Sandinistas laughed out loud. Three months after that episode, in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak in this Central American country, Castro was hospitalized with symptoms of the virus. A cousin and parliamentary advisor to legislator Navarro, Roberto Moreira, died of covid-19.
Castro was hospitalized at the Military Hospital in Managua, and has since disappeared from Parliament. While Navarro went from minimizing the covid-19 constantly on official television to "fumigating even the sandwiches that are served" in his office, according to the liberal deputy Maximino Rodr?guez, one of those who arrived with a mask in plenary in March . Castro and Navarro are not the only faithful to the Ortega Government affected by covid-19. In the last month, more than twenty officials who denied and minimized the danger of the coronavirus have died or were infected.
The list includes more Sandinista deputies, as well as prominent public officials: ministers, mayors, police commissioners, economic advisers and even the director for Nicaragua before the Inter-American Development Bank (CABEI), the economist Armando Navarrete.
Vice President Rosario Murillo has revealed, drop by drop, that some officials and members of the Sandinista party have died. "Their legacy remains, their courage, and above all that love with which they served the Nicaraguan people at all times," said the first lady on Tuesday in reference to the deceased. Murillo made the announcement on the rise of local and community contagion of the virus, warned by local health personnel and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), but which the Government denies. Independent estimates warn that in Nicaragua there are more than 4,000 positive cases and 980 deaths, against the 1,118 confirmed and 46 deaths reported so far by the Central American country's Ministry of Health.
Murillo did not attribute the deaths in his ranks to the coronavirus, thus following the policy of "disguising" the deaths related to the pandemic under other diseases, specialists and doctors have denounced. Two senior Sandinista officials stood out in Murillo's speech. First, the telecommunications minister Orlando Castillo, sanctioned by the United States in 2019 "for censoring the media." And second, the mayor of the city of Masaya Orlando Noguera, who led part of the brutal repression against the citizens of that town during the 2018 anti-government protests.
Both Castillo and Noguera died this week in hospital wards intended for the exclusive care of patients with covid-19 symptoms. Various medical sources confirmed that officials suffered from complicated clinical pictures and one of them was intubated to aid his breathing. Despite this, Vice President Murillo did not recognize the infections. In the city of Masaya, 30 kilometers south of Managua, Mayor Noguera was expressly buried, as established by the protocol for deaths associated with the pandemic.
"A divine punishment"
Although the express burial confirmed the rumor that Noguera was infected with covid-19, what prevailed for the inhabitants of Masaya were the festivities. While gravediggers dressed in protective suits buried the mayor, bombs and rockets were exploited by citizens who suffered the repression, commanded by Noguera in 2018, according to human rights organizations. An inhabitant of Masaya, who launched firecrackers for the death of the mayor, assured this newspaper that "covid-19 did the justice that all my brothers killed in 2018 could not have in this country."
The deaths and infections of all Sandinista officials and sympathizers - who are becoming known thanks to medical or family leaks - are interpreted by a large part of the population.