MEXICO CITY – Dozens of hounds have been killed by COVID-19 in Peru since the start of the pandemic, in the highest number of deaths among media personnel from the new coronavirus in Latin America, according to teams of hounds monitoring the available data. .
As in many countries, the new coronavirus has affected virtually every sector of society and every region of Peru, killing and sickening medical workers, teachers, street vendors, unemployed people and others. But emerging knowledge of hound deaths in Peru is among the highest in the world, it is incredibly difficult to check in many cases whether they have become ill after covering the news of the pandemic or doing other work.
On Wednesday, a Catholic priest organized a virtual mass in a church for 22 hounds – 19 men and 3 – who, according to the Lima College of Journalists, had died alone in the Lima region. Ricardo Burgos Rojas, dean of the university, said that many were freelancers and some worked for Panamericana Television, TV Peru, Andean News Agency, Radio Exitosa and other media.
“What happens with hounds in Peru is a kind of reflected image of what happens to the Peruvian population,” said Zuliana Lainez, general secretary of the National Association of Journalists of Peru, a lima-based union.
At least 82 in Peru died of the disease between 16 March, when Peru imposed a lockout due to the fitness crisis, and on August 17, according to the association. Many were over the age of 65 and many were retired.
“In May, the (Amazonian) jungle and the north of the country had the highest number of casualties, now it’s the south of the country,” Lainez said. In many cases, he said, the hounds did not have a protective apparatus good enough when attending press meetings or missions, and they felt compelled to paint because they needed money.
Lainez said knowledge was based on national affiliate data, adding effects of coronavirus testing, medical reports, and interviews with members of the family circle. The settlement estimates that more than a portion of the deceased had not contracted the virus for his cadrates as a journalist, based on his movements, illnesses within their families and other factors.
Like other countries, Peru has struggled to unload knowledge and reconcile COVID-19 deviations. Doctors have attributed a death to the disease based on symptoms rather than the result of a test. There are questions about the accuracy of death certificates. Especially in the early days of the pandemic, there was a stigma associated with a coronavirus-related death.
The death toll in Peru is more than double the 40 reported hound deaths in neighboring Ecuador, and a total of 171 hounds in Latin America have died from the disease, according to the regional workplace of the International Federation of Journalists. However, the non-profit organization Fundamedios said on August 11 that the death toll in Ecuador 20.
On August 7, the Inter-American Press Association paid three times to more than a hundred media professionals in the Americas who died as a result of COVID-19 “in the exercise of their profession,” listing the names of those who died still without offering major points on how they might have the virus.
Press Emblem Campaign, a Geneva-based organization presented through newshounds, said on July 1 that Peru had lost the maximum number of newshounds to COVID-19 from all countries of the world.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists does not have a database of the hounds who have contracted COVID-19. The New York-based organization said media staff “are potentially exposed to infections through travel, interviews and places where they work,” and recommends the use of protective equipment, as well as hygiene and social estrangement measures, to reduce the threat of infection in the field.
The CPJ said it had documented several cases of hounds who died or are suspected of dying from COVID-19 after being imprisoned for their work, adding in Egypt, Honduras and Kyrgyzstan.
Peru, with a population of 33 million, reported more than 26,800 deaths from COVID-19, the actual number is estimated much higher due to difficulties in confirming the cause of many deaths. It has recorded 560,000 cases of coronavirus, hitting it in the maximum of 10 sensitive countries, part of them in Latin America, with the maximum number of cases shown in the world.
Freelancer Ricardo Gutiérrez Aparicio among the first Peruvian news to die for COVID-19. The Lima College of Journalists announced his death on April 1.
The Peruvian journalist César Campos tweeted two days later that with his friend’s, “the virus and its tragic consequences are knocking on our door.”
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