Paraguay: Sanitary Crisis Could Trigger Social Unrest

Paraguay is on the brink of social unrest as social movements, and social media users have called for a strike on Friday, March 5, to denounce the country's sanitary crisis and the rise in infections.

On Thursday, the South American nation reported its highest COVID-19 figures in 24 hours with 1.341 new cases and 21 deaths. This as frontline workers and the citizens protests about the lack of supplies in hospitals while many health care units are collapsing.

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People turned to social media to call for a strike in front of Congress on March 5, using #EstoyParaElMarzo2021. This after workers of the National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases (Ineram) demonstrated on Wednesday in front of the headquarters, denouncing the lack of medicines and the delay in the vaccination campaign.

Mario Abdo Benítez, from the conservative Colorado Party, has received widespread criticism and corruption allegations. Moreover, Efraín Alegre, the leader of the Liberal Party, the main opposition force, said that the people "could not remain silent in the face of so much indignation, in the face of so much suffering in the families."

"A collapsed health system was reached, without supplies, without medicines, without vaccines," not because of the people, as the Government wants to propose, but because of corruption, inefficiency, and futility of a government of rogues," the politician added.