Perú -Covid19: highest mortality rate in the world

Perú has become the country with the highest mortality rate in the world as a result of Covid-19. According to the Peruvian government 185,380.00 people have died due to the coronavirus across the country. This means that almost 0,5% of the population has died because of the pandemic

The hospital collapse was more apparent during the summer of 2021. Therefore, more people were forced to self-medicate at home and buy oxygen balloons and concentrators. Only during this period of time 11% of all deaths due to Covid-19 in Lima occurred at home. At the bedroom of María Jiménez Amado (65) there is a portrait of an Andean landscape that commands the empty walls. Beneath its flashy colors lays a black plastic bag containing her body. On the other end of the capital city of Lima, the neighbors of Hildebrando Maguiña Espinoza (89) have gathered in the balconies of an apartment complex in a last goodbye to his friend. “See you soon Hildebrando”, said calmly a woman from a window.

Housing overcrowding is a key factor in the spread of the covid-19. 1 out of 10 Peruvians still live in overcrowded houses. Feliciano Lindo Cerrón (81) lived in a mudbrick house with a roof of palm fonds along with his sons, daughters and grandchildren. The day of his departure his family improvised an altar gathering a bunch of ragged bricks, two plastic glasses, candles and a black and white portrait of him while his body was locked down inside a minuscule room without any windows. 18 miles away the body of María Luperdi Casana (80) is hard to find amidst clothes racks, cardboard boxes, mattresses and curtains coming down from the ceiling. Her room was once shared with three other people one of whom was her husband that now agonizes connected to a serum bag in another room.

Story & images by Paco Chuquiure