Chile's health minister resigns as disastrous policies lead to explosion in coronavirus infections a

[Judi Lynn]

By Mauricio Saavedra
19 June 2020

Chilean Health Minister Jaime Mañalich resigned last weekend. Only hours earlier, the deeply unpopular minister was exposed for hiding the true number of deaths caused by the highly contagious COVID-19 virus. A media investigation revealed that the government was providing the World Health Organization a coronavirus body count that was almost double that given to the general public.

The discredited minister’s removal is aimed at damage control under conditions where the government and Parliament confront seething anger at the state’s incompetence and opposition to dealing with a rapidly deepening health, economic and social catastrophe for the working class.

Since March 3, the rate of infection from COVID-19 has increased exponentially in the country of 19 million due to the criminally negligent policies pursued by the administration of ultra-right President Sebastian Piñera. Only 105 days after the first victim, there are today 184,449 confirmed cases, but even this number is likely just the tip of the iceberg.

This was made evident when Mañalich, responsible as health minister for implementing strategies to deal with the coronavirus, was exposed for a second time in less than two weeks as underreporting the number of fatalities. Last Friday the investigative journal CIPER got hold of the ministry’s weekly report to the WHO from the Department of Statistics and Health Information (DEIS) that showed that over 5,000 people had died of coronavirus by June 12, a figure greatly exceeding the 2,870 deaths reported to the public.

More:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/19/chil-j19.html