In Peru, only the poor pay for the pandemic

You don't need to be a genius to realize how President Vizcarra's government has handled the pandemic; he has divided Peru into two: the rich, for whom he quickly allocated hundreds of millions to help them “recover” from their losses, and the poor, for whom he reserved only the quarantine and refused to improve public hospitals, leaving them as they were, in the same state of calamity as always. What I’m saying is not a product of my imagination nor my political opinion of this government, but a harsh and unfortunate reality. Businesses First In other words, the top priority from the beginning was to create the necessary "fund" of money so that large and medium-sized businesses could survive without risk, for which a huge amount was gathered and given to certain banks so that they could lend it to their “favorite” clients whom they knew would “repay the loan” made with state money. In other words, the banks will make more money by lending Peru's money. Could there be a more profitable business than that, charging for money that isn’t theirs? That’s why we’ve seen calamitous and despicable cases, like giving millions to private clinics (which “thanks to COVID” were making more money than ever) or to law firms that are just businesses in name, without any infrastructure or employees to maintain. But this didn’t bother the government, as the CONFIEP applauded and remained silent, meaning that Vizcarra does not feel his hold on power is threatened (since if you’re with the wealthy, no one can take you down). But the other side of the coin is the 80% of the Peruvian workforce (euphemistically called “entrepreneurs, aspirational individuals, small business owners”), who are mostly just traders and street vendors, none of whom contribute taxes or help the country since it’s a subsistence economy.** For them, for the poor, the government only showed the police and the army, with the promise of distributing “money,” which only ended up making them sicker as they stood in endless lines. The government refused by all means to allocate an emergency budget to hospitals to buy at least masks for doctors: it abandoned them to their fate. And while Peruvians were dying by the thousands, what was the government doing? Negotiating with the English, Irish, and French the “construction” of more hospitals and schools, not caring about the many that already exist but are non-functional. In short, the only thing running smoothly during the pandemic are the Lava Jato businesses, now with new faces but the same script.

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