With Covid-19 cases erupting across Venezuela, the government of Nicolas Maduro has restricted testing to two state laboratories around Caracas, preventing private and university labs from participating and raising fears that coronavirus will go undiagnosed while the country claims a low caseload. By Nicolle Yapur and Patricia Laya. Full Text-> Bloomberg

“We believe the data — the statistics that the Venezuelan government give, Maduro’s statistics — are absolutely absurd and are not credible,” HRW director for the Americas Jose Miguel Vivanco said during a videoconference Tuesday while presenting the report. The true number could ultimately be closer to “at least 30,000” coronavirus deaths, according to Johns Hopkins associate medicine professor Kathleen Page, , who interviewed several Venezuelan doctors and nurses for the report.

The odd result highlights that Venezuela is going about testing its citizens unlike any other country: Mass deployment of a rapid blood antibody test from China that checks for proteins developing a week or more after someone is infected, while using on a much smaller scale the gold-standard nasal swab exam that detects the virus from the onset. Full text -> Fox59