The authoritarian governments of Nicaragua and Venezuela They wanted to present themselves as especially effective in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, as if their political regimes offered direct immunity to their inhabitants, but it has been shown that they were the ones that hid the most deaths from that emergency in proportion. They were also the two countries that most trusted the vacuna rusa Sputnik V. In concealment of deaths they were followed by Bolivia and El Salvador, with governments equally willing to use low figures as propaganda. On the other hand, those who most adjusted to reality in their reports were Costa Rica and Chile.
Nicaragua officially reported 223 deaths from Covid throughout 2020 and 2021, but in those two years there were 33,400 more deaths in that Central American country than the statistics usually show; that is, a figure 150 times greater than that recognized by the Government of Daniel Ortega and his wife. regimen Nicholas Maduro admitted in that same period in Venezuela 5,430 deaths from Covid, but the excess of deaths was 164,000: 30 times more.
This is computed by a study on excess deaths during the pandemic worldwide published in the scientific journal ‘The Lancet’. Appeared in March, the study has just been collected by the World Bank in a report on the socioeconomic situation in which Latin America finds itself after a greater incidence of the pandemic than many countries had admitted.
Although part of the difference between the two calculations that has occurred in many places can be attributed to inaccuracies inherent to the characteristics of the disease, the improvisation or inefficiency of health systems (and it is true that the countries with the most consistent figures –Costa Rica and Chile– have a better performance of their institutions and their health systems), the great divergence of figures in Nicaragua and Venezuela, as well as in Bolivia and El Salvador, attribute it to a purpose of concealing the seriousness of the crisis suffered by those countries.
El Salvador versus Costa Rica
Costa Rica soon emerged as an example that democracies were better at fighting the pandemic, and its actions initially in evidence authoritarian methods applied in El Salvador, where Nayib Bukele took advantage of the emergency situation to apply greater social and political control. He had to legitimize those more coercive practices by ensuring that they were being effective; Thus, the Salvadoran government offered the figure of 3,820 deaths from Covid in 2020 and 2021, half of those reported by Costa Rica (7,350).
When the excess deaths are examined, however, we find that in El Salvador 26,900 more people died than usual (7 times more than those attributed by the Government to the pandemic), while in Costa Rica the excess deaths were 6,220. , a figure even lower than that reported.
More deaths in Mexico than in Brazil
The study by ‘The Lancet’ determines that, although the countries of the region officially registered 1.5 million deaths from Covid, the excess of deaths was almost double: 2.8 million, most of which should be attributed to to the pandemic. This leads to talk of a real mortality twice as high as the world average. According to the estimate, the countries of the region with higher mortality They were Bolivia (734 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and Peru (528), followed by Ecuador (333).
After India, the United States and Russia (a country that is especially punished by the excess of deaths, compared to the low official figures recognized by the Kremlin), where there were more deaths worldwide was in Mexico (798,000 people) and in Brazil (792,000). The figures offered by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador placed Mexico clearly below Brazil, when the Mexican mortality was actually almost double (325 per 100,000 inhabitants) than the Brazilian (172).