Story at a glance:
- Peru has the worst cases of COVID-19 deaths per capita.
- The number of deaths were originally underrecorded.
- Peru is experiencing overcrowded hospitals and a high demand for oxygen.
Peru now has the highest COVID-19 death rate per capita in the world after a government review found the country’s death toll is almost triple what was originally recorded, Reuters and the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The government revised its data to reflect that 180,764 people have died from COVID-19 thus far, instead of the 69,342 recorded as Sunday. Reuters reports a lack of testing made it difficult for the government to determine whether someone died from the coronavirus or some other cause.
The updated data comes as many countries in South America are increasingly being hit hard by the pandemic. The New York Times reports that Argentina, Brazil, Columbia and Peru saw record high death rates in late April, and the region is “taking an alarming turn for the worse.”
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“We consider it our duty to publish this updated information, not only as part of our commitment with accountability but also to fulfill our responsibility as a state,” said President of the Council of Ministers, Violeta Bermúdez, Al Jazeera reports.
As Changing America previously reported, a number of countries are experiencing a shortage of oxygen while less than 20 percent of their populations are vaccinated. The Guardian reports that in Peru, hospitals are overcrowded and demand for oxygen is outpacing supply. Peru has currently vaccinated 3.5 percent of its population.
“Peru has only tested about one-third, proportionately, of its population,” Brazilian epidemiologist Julio Ponce told Al Jazeera. “So when you do not have access to testing, you should not just be counting people who have tested positive and eventually died of COVID because, of course, a great number of people won’t be counted in those figures.”
Brazil has the highest COVID-19 death toll in South America, and the third highest in the world, when accounting for cases and deaths. When considering death rates per capita, Peru stands at more than 213 deaths per 100,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins data.
“What is being said is that a significant number of deaths were not classified as caused by COVID-19,” said the health minister, Óscar Ugarte, according to The Guardian.
Some medical professionals like Panagis Galiatsatos of John Hopkins believes that politics had something to do with the underreporting of COVID-19 cases.
“If you’re going to under sell these numbers in order to gain short term wins from politics, you are going to lose in the long term,” Galiatsatos said, reports Al Jazeera. “Mother nature is not political, she has her own agenda.”
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