The country is now fighting one of the worst outbreaks in Latin America outside of Brazil
By Ryan Dube
LIMA, Peru—This country implemented one of the Western Hemisphere’s strictest lockdowns to slow the coronavirus pandemic, but the measures weren’t apparent in April as throngs of women jostled around Katherine Rivera’s small chicken stall.
They were all buying food on one of the few days allowed after President Martín Vizcarra, in an effort to keep people mostly indoors, ordered that women and men could leave their homes only on alternating days of the week, with no one leaving Sundays. The result was large crowds of women, who in Peru do most of the grocery shopping, heading to the markets on the designated days.
Women shopped at a market in Lima in April. Peru’s president ordered that women and men could leave their homes only on alternating days of the week. / PHOTO: SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA/REUTERS
“They bought so much it was like the world was going to end,” said Ms. Rivera, who said she came down with a fever and diarrhea after catching the coronavirus at Lima’s San Felipe Market, where 40% of workers have tested positive for the disease as of early May. “It was horrible. We were definitely not prepared.”
Three months after Mr. Vizcarra deployed soldiers to the streets and shut almost all business, Peru is grappling with Latin America’s worst outbreak outside of Brazil. But unlike Brazil, whose president played down the dangers and never instituted a national lockdown, Peru was applauded for swiftly implementing strict policies to keep people home.
On March 16, when Peru had 71 coronavirus cases and no deaths, the government sealed its borders, prohibited domestic travel and banned all nonessential business. It detained thousands of people who violated a nighttime curfew. It fined others for not using face masks or going for a drive without permission.
Peru’s plight underscores the struggles facing developing nations now bearing the brunt of the pandemic. It shows how broad measures like a lockdown can be undermined by structural problems.
In Peru, those include a rundown health system, a huge informal economy in which 70% of the workforce has no social safety net and deep inequality that means most people don’t have bank accounts or refrigerators, with many others lacking running water. Those realities persisted in Peru despite years of robust economic growth that won praise on Wall Street.
As a result, critics now say that some of the policies backfired, driving crowds to markets and banks that became hotbeds for contagion in the early weeks of the lockdown when there was still a chance to control the pandemic.
“The severity of the lockdown was actually counterproductive,” said Carlos Ganoza, a public policy expert and former high-ranking government economist. “You can have people in their homes 99% of the time, and the other 1% you have them all mixing up together. That would be a terrible policy, and that is basically what the Peruvian lockdown did.”
Peru’s president deployed soldiers to the streets and shut almost all businesses in an attempt to slow the pandemic.
The result is that stern measures similar to Peru’s that worked in wealthy Milan and Madrid proved far less effective here. In Italy, the number of new cases peaked 14 days after it implemented a national lockdown. Peru posted its biggest daily increase almost 80 days after enacting similar measures.
Today, this country of 30 million people has 220,000 confirmed cases, more than France and on track to pass Italy in the coming days, according to Johns Hopkins data. Peru’s official death toll is over 6,300, but like other countries the real number is likely much higher. In April and May, 36,020 people died in Peru, more than twice as many as the average number during the same period from 2017 to 2019, according to Health Ministry data.
So far, the lockdown hasn’t reversed the coronavirus curve. Hospitals remain overwhelmed with patients, while their relatives desperately search for scarce oxygen tanks. Some authorities have accused companies that supply oxygen of treason for price gouging amid soaring demand.
Experts fear a virus now disproportionately hitting poor and crowded urban neighborhoods will spread further as the government reopens an economy that the World Bank expects to contract 12% this year, the worst in South America.
“There is nothing to indicate that the situation is going to improve,” said Ricardo Fort, a researcher at Grade, a Lima-based think tank. “The entire system is almost made for a disaster in a pandemic like this.”
Officials here say the tough measures slowed the pandemic’s growth, providing time to stock up on ventilators and add hundreds of new intensive-care beds. It also allowed health officials to ramp up testing, giving Peru one of the highest per capita rates of testing in Latin America. Without a lockdown, the number of cases would be five times higher, said Health Minister Victor Zamora.
“That allowed us to save lives, a lot of lives,” he said.
Relatives of Covid-19 patients lined up to refill oxygen tanks on June 11.
But the government also recognizes that some policies were a mistake, including the order determining what days women and men could leave their homes, which was shelved in April.
Peruvians backed the stern rules, with pollster Ipsos reporting that 95% of Peruvians approved of the measures. Data from Google showed people stayed home more than residents in Latin America’s other major nations as Lima’s chaotic traffic disappeared overnight.
When people did go out, they often went to the same place. Massive lines formed outside of banks as people waited for government payments intended to help poor families survive the lockdown and shelter at home. About 60% of Peruvians don’t have a bank account, according to the World Bank, forcing them to physically go to a branch to get the cash.
Food markets, where the majority of Peruvians buy their food, became another petri dish for the virus, which spread quickly among poorly ventilated, narrow aisles. Unlike in Europe and the U.S., most people here often buy just enough groceries for a day or two, partly out of custom but also due to a lack of money. Many also can’t store meat and dairy for long in a country where half of homes don’t have refrigerators, according to the government statistics agency.
Instead of managing crowds by extending market hours or creating smaller, temporary places to buy food, authorities limited the time and days to shop, sometimes with little notice.
A couple of days before Easter, Mr. Vizcarra announced a total shutdown over the holiday, catching people off guard as they rushed to markets. Authorities had prohibited delivery services and closed restaurants, even for takeout.
“People were desperate,” said Claudia González, a vendor at a Lima fruit market where 80% of workers have tested positive for Covid-19 as of May, according to the government. “They were jumbled all together and didn’t take precautions to maintain distance.”
Experts say authorities were slow to address the risks at markets, waiting weeks into the lockdown before they started testing workers. Initially, there were few efforts to manage crowds, which increased in the streets outside the markets that attracted throngs of people who had lost their jobs and were selling face masks and vegetables.
Naomi Aquino, 19 years old, backed the tough measures, however she wasn’t able to stay home for long. Early into the lockdown, she began selling avocados from a box outside a Lima market to support her parents, younger sister and grandparents.
“Every day that I don’t sell avocados is a day that there isn’t food in the house,” said Ms. Aquino, wearing a red face mask.
Infected markets were shut down and scrubbed clean in May, and allowed to reopen only after implementing rules to maintain social distancing.
The San Felipe Market recently restarted business. To enter, shoppers now need to wash their hands and get their temperature taken by a worker. Inside, they follow arrows directing people. Signs remind them to stay a meter away from others.
Jessica Balbín sells pasta and eggs behind a plastic sheet that separates her from shoppers. She tested positive for the virus, but didn’t have symptoms. After self-quarantining, she returned to work in late May, wearing a face mask, gloves and hairnet.
“We don’t know how many people are really sick,” she said. “If they would have done this from the beginning, it would have been better.”
Shoppers lined up outside a market in Piura, Peru, at the end of April.
PHOTO: SEBASTIAN ENRIQUEZ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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