Neoliberal Chile collapsing like a ‘house of cards’ amidst Covid-19 chaos

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The situation in COVID19- ravaged Chile has replayed in my mind an incident I witnessed many years ago.

A cyclist was killed in collision with a car, as I watched the accident unfold the cyclist’s fate looked unavoidable. The same unnerving feeling of impending disaster has accompanied me since early this year.

The first case of COVID19 in Chile was recorded on March 3rd. New Zealand recorded its first case on March 4th but is soon expected to be virus free.

How on June 3rd could Chile, blessed with two months’ lead time, came to have the highest C-19 infection rate per million inhabitants in the world? What about the accrued experience of countries fighting the pandemic much earlier? What about the WHO recommendations? Were there no lessons to learn from elsewhere? What happened?

To understand the present we must remember where Chile was coming from. Chile has been neoliberalism’s most extreme experiment since the 70’s. It’s military dictatorship sold off state companies and imposed savage cuts on education and health. A social uprising had started on October 18, as a result of precarious living conditions for the majority.

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A lack of regulatory constraint means many workers have no contract and salaries are beneath the poverty line. Corporate tax evasion is high and cartels engage in price fixing.

Roughly 75% of the population live in poverty, using credit cards to buy basic items. 80% of households see debt swallow up 75% of their monthly income. Around 3,500,000 of the 18,000,000 population have precarious jobs, being either self-employed or lacking legal contracts. This disqualified them from the meagre COVID 19 payment of $85 dollar (that the government prevaricated about awarding for six weeks). 

Health professionals asked for a quarantine to be declared soon after the first cases, but the government placed vested financial interests ahead of health, playing down the seriousness of the pandemic.

On March 3rd an arrogant Pinera announced ‘we are prepared to adequately face this epidemic’. Two weeks later, the president confidently assured citizens that ‘we are much better prepared than Italy’.

Only partial quarantines to some sections (comunas) of the capital and other cities were declared. In April, still in blatant denial, he declared the country would soon engage in a ‘safe return to normalcy’, while officials encouraged people to go out for a coffee or a beer. 

The recommendations of the COVID19 advisory committees were ignored. The president and the Minister of Health would not hear of establishing blanket quarantines, lockdowns, or closing the schools. It took a joint action of mayors and parents to close down schools.

Local quarantines were established in the first three capital comunas (districts) with cases. Seemingly ignored is that those comunas were the wealthiest by far, with each household having three or four employees commuting in from less privileged areas. In this way, the virus spread between comunas, unchecked. What use is a quarantine in a district, if thousands of employees travel in and out everyday?

When the number of cases and fatalities were undeniable, and a quarantine was set for the whole of the capital it was clear that it would not work. The poor 75% lacked the savings to afford a quarantine. The small state economic help did not reach them. Instead of an emergency salary, the government has given the Chilean people curfews and thousands of military in the streets. Governmental action has been too little and too late.

Official reports of new cases and casualties lacked credibility, containing minimal and unreliable information. PPE and ventilators which Pinera said had been bought as early as January never arrived. Only pressure from investigative journalists, medical professionals and the general public forced the Minister of Health to share more detailed information, and to start properly counting cases and deaths. Previously, excess deaths and unreported COVID 19 deaths had been denied in order to dodge the responsibility.

Last week Jaime Manalich, the Chilean Minister of Health, confessed that the formulae he had used since the month of January to predict the development of the pandemic had crumbled like a house of cards. As simple as that. No apologies.

Two days later he stated that he was unaware of the extreme poverty and crowded conditions in which an important part of the capital’s inhabitants live. A poor excuse for not implementing the necessary measures to support people during the quarantine. And the worst is just beginning. 

A house of cards indeed. 

JMV

Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

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Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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