The streets of Antigua, Guatemala, are silent. The tourist enclave was completely closed off due to the COVID-19 pandemic during what normally would have been one of the biggest tourist weeks of the year, Holy Week, April 5 to 11.
The somber processions in other parts of the country have been canceled as well.
Three of the cases of COVID-19 identified were found in migrants deported to Guatemala from the United States, in spite of reported measures taken by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency to guarantee the health of migrants.
In Guatemala City, the faithful gathered outside the Santuario Arquidiocesano del Señor San José in the historic center as a lone man played a trumpet. Many cried as they placed their candles outside the locked gate of the church where the annual Palm Sunday procession normally begins.
Jeff Abbott
Faithful light candles outside the Santuario Arquidiocesano del Señor San José in the historic center of Guatemala City on Sunday April 5.
The shuttering of Holy Week events is part of the lockdown across Guatemala in response to the coronavirus pandemic that has been declared by President Doctor Alejandro Giammattei, who took office in January.
The Guatemalan government has taken drastic measures to prevent the spread of the virus, including closing borders, declaring a curfew from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m., and banning travel between the departments of the country. The economic elite initially resisted social distancing measures, including keeping call centers and maquilas open. These actions, viewed by labor organizations as violations of workers’ rights to security, were met by denouncements.
Guatemala has seen the slow spread of COVID-19 since President Giammattei announced the first case on March 12. Officially, the Guatemalan Health Ministry has now announced eighty cases, three deaths, and the president has stated that seventeen have “recuperated,” as of April 7.
Yet according to a report from the national paper El Periodico, Guatemala’s slow increase can be attributed to low rates of testing, with the country only carrying out 1,134 tests between February 17 and April 4. Guatemala’s Health Ministry has stated that it will increase testing, and has now permitted four private hospitals to test for the virus as well, but during his nationally broadcasted message on April 6, Giammattei said that widespread testing was not necessary.
Three of the cases of COVID-19 identified were found in migrants deported to Guatemala from the United States, in spite of reported measures taken by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency to guarantee the health of migrants.
A week after the announcement of the first identified case by health officials in Guatemala, Giammattei contradicted the announcement, stating there were no cases among those deported to the country. The same day, the U.S. Embassy announced that it was sending assistance to Guatemala, including test kits and protective equipment, to help fight the pandemic.
Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry announced April 6 that deportation flights from the United States would be suspended due to the health crisis. The Guatemalan Institute for Migration confirmed to The Progressive that this was the case.
Guatemala faces a huge crisis created by the spread of COVID-19, both in terms of public health and the economy. According to Abelardo Medina, a senior economist with the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies, among the biggest impacts of the crisis will come from a decline in the number of tourists.
“For Guatemala, the majority of tourists enter during Holy Week,” Medina told The Progressive. “Holy Week is completely lost.”
Jeff Abbott
A member of the catholic church utilizes a incense urn outside the Santuario Arquidiocesano del Señor San José in Guatemala City's historic center on April 5.
In 2019, Holy Week tourism brought in more than 3.5 million travelers, nearly one million of whom traveled to Antigua. These tourists generated two billion Quetzales, more than 263 million U.S. dollars, through the week. In 2020, the money generated by tourism will be close to zero due to the measures taken by the state.
Another major impact of the pandemic is a significant decrease in remittances sent from Guatemalans in the United States to relatives in Guatemala. According to Medina, this will lead to more extreme poverty in rural areas.
“Levels of employment are being restricted in the United States, and the first who are affected are the migrants,” Medina said. “Almost all of the remittances received by the people goes to consumption. This will lead to an increase of poverty of the people that rely on remittances.”
Guatemala received $10.5 billion in remittances from the United States in 2019. Yet 2020 has seen remittances fall dramatically due to the closure of businesses in the United States as a result of the pandemic.
In order to prevent the further slip into poverty, the Guatemalan government announced that it would provide supplies to families in poverty and a stimulus of 1,000 Quetzales, or about 130 U.S. dollars, to families. But this is only a temporary solution.
But campesinos, rural residents, and Guatemala’s response to the pandemic in general are also severely threatened by a weakened public health sector, which has been referred to as a “symbol of death.” If poverty continues to rise, the population, which already suffers from extreme hunger and diseases such as Dengue, will succumb to the effects of the pandemic as well.
The gutting of the public health care system as a result of neoliberal economic policies has caused Guatemala’s health care system to collapse long before the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Images of overcrowded public hospitals in the country’s capital city, with two people per bed, a national hospital flooded in 2015, and long lines for those awaiting attention have spread across social media. Ill patients regularly die while waiting in lines for medical attention.
The situation is worse outside of the urban centers, where community health posts often lack medicines and materials. A breakdown by José David López and Stéfan Dyck for the digital media outlet Nomada showed that Guatemala’s investment in its health care system was substantially less in Indigenous regions, which generally have higher levels of poverty. Poverty and malnutrition are factors that further intensify the crisis of the pandemic.
Measures taken by the Morales Administration and conservative politicians to emphasize the use of public funds for the military at the cost of public health put Guatemala in a dangerous position.
Since the outbreak began, medics at the national hospital in Villa Nueva, which was designated as the first hospital to respond to cases of coronavirus, have issued complaints of chaos in the hospital, stating they lack material and safety equipment.
Neoliberal economic policies have gutted the public health sector across Latin America. These weakened health care systems across Central America are now confronting the pandemic.
Since the first case was identified in Costa Rica on March 5, the region—not including Panama or Belize—has registered nearly 1000 cases of COVID-19, as of April 8, with forty-one deaths attributed to the pandemic as of April 5. Governments across the region have taken emergency measures against the spread of the virus, with borders being shut down and governments responding to both the economic collapse and the pandemic.
The Nayib Bukele Administration in El Salvador rapidly took drastic steps to prevent the spread of the virus, including closing the country’s borders, a thirty-day quarantine, and curfews.
“We are going to make some quick decisions that are going to have mistakes, that are going to cause discomfort, that are going to have incredible costs for our economy,” said Bukele in a nationally broadcast speech, as reported by Reuters.
Among these mistakes was a day when crowds violated all principles of social distancing on March 30 to line up for the $300 that the administration had promised as a means to help ease the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
Testing in El Salvador has remained limited, contributing to low rates of infection.
Honduras has taken steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, including the closing of borders and airports. But like Guatemala, the country’s health care system remains weak due to lack of investment and is plagued by corruption. The country, along with Guatemala, is considered the most ill-prepared to confront a pandemic, according to the Global Health Security Index from John Hopkins University.
Jeff Abbott
A man in a mask rides past a sign for restaurant in the historic center of Guatemala City that says that there is no table service due to the health crisis on Sunday April 5.
The nation most prepared to respond to a pandemic in Central America is Costa Rica, which is rated number sixty-two on the index, according to Johns Hopkins University. Costa Rica, too, has taken drastic measures to slow the spread of the pandemic, especially during Holy Week. But Costa Rica has expressed concern with the ways its northern neighbor is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nicaragua has faced criticisms for not taking more drastic measures against the spread of the coronavirus. President Daniel Ortega’s Administration has failed to issue any orders for social distancing, or any other measures, since the first case was identified in March. Holy Week activities in the country are continuing as normal.