The situation is complicated by the pandemic in Paraguay

Paraguay registered a new record of covid-19 infections, with 1,341 positives and 21 deaths in 24 hours. The situation is increasingly delicate and criticism of the government is intensifying for the lack of supplies in the health centers and the slowness in obtaining vaccines for the population.

With these figures, the total number of infections since the first positive on March 7, 2020, amounts to 162,871, while that of deaths to 3,239, the Ministry of Health reported in its daily report on social networks. Paraguayan health centers are also at full capacity, with 1,103 hospitalized, of which 270 remain in intensive care units, while recovered patients amount to 136,366. The shortage of public hospitals in the country led to a spontaneous protest by nurses and doctors in Asunción on Wednesday. During the demonstration, they denounced the lack of medicines and medical supplies for those hospitalized for the coronavirus and the delay in vaccinating the population.

The workers of the National Institute of Respiratory and Environmental Diseases marched in front of the headquarters of the center of that body, the main one in the fight against covid-19, after the announcement of the resignation of its director, Felipe González. The lack of medicines, mainly those used to keep intubated patients sedated, has been denounced for several weeks by doctors. The Government attributes this lack to the high global demand for these drugs.

Added to this is the public unrest over the slow delivery of vaccines, limited to a shipment of 4,000 doses of Sputnik V reserved for health personnel in the "front row" in the fight against covid-19. Paraguay is still waiting for a million doses, from Russia, and the 4.3 million agreed through the Covax mechanism of the World Health Organization (WHO), whose first shipment is scheduled for the middle of this month.

Against this background, the president of the Liberal Party, the largest opposition party, Efraín Alegre, said this Wednesday through a video that "we cannot remain silent in the face of so much indignation, in the face of so much suffering in the families. And he asserted that there was "a collapsed health system, 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.

In March 2020, the government of Mario Abdo Benítez, from the conservative Colorado Party, obtained approval for a $ 1.6 billion loan to deal with the coronavirus, but tenders and purchases were clouded by allegations of corruption.