Poorest Caracas Neighborhoods Flout Maduro’s Virus Lockdown

(Bloomberg) -- Much of Caracas is now deserted with hardly anyone in the streets apart from armed officials enforcing the coronavirus lockdown.

Not so in the Venezuelan capital’s slums, where stocking up and hunkering down isn’t an option. Food runs out and the poor must risk contagion and visit teeming markets to buy rice, eggs, and cornflour.

In the Coche market in south-west Caracas, a long line of shoppers is blasted with messages from speakers warning them to use face masks and hand sanitizer, and keep 1.5 meters away from each other. Before getting inside, they’re hosed down with a mixture of water and alcohol.

Inside the market, the rules are soon forgotten: hundreds of people stumble into each other looking for the best prices on onions, sardines, or bananas. It’s hot, and flies are everywhere. Amid the barging and haggling, many people have removed their old and dirty masks and are wiping sweaty hands over sweaty faces. Amid the fruit stalls, a barber has set up shop and is cutting a customer’s hair.

Similar scenes play out in Quinta Crespo market, in the city’s downtown, in Catia, in the west, and in Petare, in the east. Some people don’t have enough money to buy more than a day’s worth of food, and return to the markets again and again.

Despite the pandemic, Alberto Silva, 39, must leave his home every day or his family can’t eat. He walks along Catia’s main street wearing his only face mask, selling bread. He spends whatever he makes on the day’s food for his wife and two children.

At home, all he has are two packets of cornmeal and three bags of rice, he says. He avoids touching his children for fear of infecting them.

“Today I only managed to change a bag of bread for this package of rice,” he said. “I can’t stay home.”

Everyone is afraid, especially the elderly, and everyone is aware that Venezuela’s collapsed health system can’t remotely cope with the pandemic.

President Nicolas Maduro’s government says Venezuela has seen 143 cases and three deaths since March 13. Opposition leader Juan Guaido says the true number is much higher.

Clutching a bag of tomatoes and carrots at the Coche market, Mirtha Ley, 71, said she has to do her own shopping because she lives alone. She pays for it with money her son sends her from Peru.

“It scares me, this is crowded, but I find better prices here,” she said. “I hope I don’t get sick, but I can’t stop eating.”

Vegetable sellers like Jose Padilla, 43, complain that since the lockdown began on March 17, prices have risen and they are receiving less merchandise due to the acute gasoline shortage.

The government allows the markets to be open for half a day. After 11:00 a.m., soldiers on motorcycles drive the streets of Petare, honking their horns and shouting orders to close the stores. “We have to look for food, we are hungry,” one angry woman shouted at the troops.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.