According to data from the organization Doctors United Venezuela (Médicos Unidos Venezuela), 513 health workers had died in the country by April 25. The dramatic increase in the number of infections and deaths has alarmed the guild. By the same date, the government only recognized the death of 2,047 people in total since the beginning of the pandemic. By Edgary Rodríguez R. Full Text -> GlobalComment

“The number of deaths in the health sector with criteria for COVID-19 is accelerating. Information is received of 14 new deaths to reach 513,” Medicos Unidos de Venezuela said on Twitter. Since the first cases were reported in March 2020, health care unions and NGOs have decried precarious conditions in public hospitals and limited access to personal protective equipment for treating infected patients. Full Text-> MedicalXpress

For almost a decade she has raised her voice to defend the rights of nursing workers, criticize the socialist government, denounce the lack of medical supplies and cry out for transparent democratic elections. As president of the Caracas College of Nursing, she has organized national protests and strikes and, due to her activism, has put her life at risk by being repressed along with other protesters by the state police. Full Text-> Explica

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed Venezuela’s already collapsing health care system to the limit. More than half the country’s doctors had left in recent years as émigrés or refugees. Doctors and nurses earn as little as six dollars per month in public hospitals and often lack access to soap and running water, let alone masks, gloves, gowns, and other essential PPE. As a result, doctors make up more than 14 percent of the COVID-19 death toll in Venezuela. Full Text -> Transparency International

“We were able to put in place an aid disbursement pipeline that leveraged the power of USDC – dollar-backed, open, Internet-based digital currency payments – to bypass the controls imposed by Maduro over the domestic financial system and put millions of dollars of funds into the hands of people fighting for the health and safety of the people of Venezuela.”By Hollie McKay. Full Text -> Fox News

The COVID-19 pandemic took us by surprise as a globalized society; in addition to overwhelming our health care systems, it has challenged us as social beings. It made us miss hugging one another, taught us to communicate in new ways, to relate, to prioritize, to connect and to reinvent our way of working. By David Simón. Full Text-> Forbes

A third of Venezuela’s reported COVID deaths are frontline healthcare workers. Efforts are underway to protect them – without the regime blocking them. By Tim Padgett. Full Text -> WUSFTNews