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  • Haiti: from the cholera earthquake

Haiti has declared a state of emergency tonight (dawn in Spain) upon detecting the first two cases of coronavirus. The Jovenel Moïse government has immediately imposed a curfew.

The country that shares the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic remained, along with Belize, as the great exceptions in Latin America, after the first cases detected on Wednesday in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Haiti is not only the poorest country in the region, it also starred in the last great epidemic of this century, which killed 10,000 Haitians between 2010 and 2011. Cholera reached the island in the stomach of a Nepalese soldier from the United Nations. United, just months after the earthquake that killed more than 300,000 people.

The epidemic is advancing steadily from Mexico to Argentina, from the Caribbean to the Amazon. Argentine President Alberto Fernández has decreed total quarantine while Brazil leads the ranking, with 635 cases and seven deaths. The South American giant has closed all its borders, including Venezuela, when verifying the worsening of the epidemic. Everything indicates that Latin America will follow Europe in the spread of the pandemic. In just two days, infections have doubled in several countries.

The government of Port-au-Prince had already closed its land border with its Dominican neighbor, a country where part of its population works, on Monday. It has also suspended flights to Europe, Canada and the rest of the region. The exception is the United States, with whom it maintains a close relationship and a country in which another great emigration lives. In Belize, its government has imposed a 30-day quarantine on all travelers arriving from risky areas.

Quite the contrary occurs in Nicaragua, where invitations to the love of Sandinismo have not prevented a soldier from being his first infection. With Daniel Ortega missing from any public act, his wife Rosario Murillo, vice president of the country, led a controversial mass march, dubbed "Love in times of covid-19". The plan is to deepen this type of event with the celebration of "Nicaragua all sweet, with love for you", which includes concerts, masses and fairs.

The Sandinista revolution maintains a surprising protocol, contrary to the rest of the regional governments: no quarantines, no closing of borders, or even restrictions on travelers. At the moment it concentrates its efforts on promoting handwashing, yes, including the cult of its president. Hands should be washed to the rhythm of the song "Daniel stays": "Even if it hurts, the commander here stays. Daniel, the people are with him. Daniel, Daniel, the people are with him. Long live Daniel."

"Murillo spoke of the seriousness of the epidemic, of faith, of calm. He did not announce any action to stop the massive contagions. It is a criminal irresponsibility," accused former Commander Dora María Téllez, a dissident from Ortega for years.

El Salvador, the first country in the region to prohibit the entry of foreigners on March 11, announced its first contagion on Wednesday. This is a Salvadoran who traveled to Italy and who returned through a blind spot on the border in Metapan.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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