YANGON — A severe COVID-19 wave is devastating Myanmar — a country already on its knees following February's military coup — with people queuing for hours for oxygen in major cities and the seriously ill dying at home because they are too scared to visit understaffed, ill-equipped hospitals.
Images from the biggest city, Yangon, show families of the sick waiting at oxygen plants in the hopes of refilling tanks, crematoriums packed with mourners and coffins, and funeral workers and volunteers in white hazmat suits working non-stop at cemeteries to bury rows of shrouded bodies.
During months of bloody political turmoil, Myanmar's security forces have killed more than 900 people, including shooting protesters dead in the streets, and laid siege to entire villages. Thousands have been detained in the ongoing crackdown, with widespread reports of torture.
Civil society has been eroded and the already vulnerable health care system has collapsed. Doctors and other health workers, many of whom went on strike to protest the coup, have been forced into hiding to escape attacks and arrest from junta forces.
As Myanmar now faces its worst COVID-19 outbreak, doctors and volunteers who spoke to CNN accuse the military of using the pandemic as a weapon against the people. They said the military has restricted critical oxygen sales to the public and refused sick patients at military-run hospitals. COVID-19 outbreaks have also reached prisons, including the main jail, Insein, housing anti-coup protesters.
Terrified residents are choosing to self-treat at home, doctors say. When they do go to the hospital they are often turned away as the facilities are running out of oxygen, treatments and beds, and there's not enough staff to treat patients, they said.
On Wednesday, the military-controlled health ministry reported 6,093 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total confirmed to 246,663. There were also 247 reported fatalities, with the confirmed death toll from COVID-19 5,814. But doctors and volunteer groups say those numbers are woefully under-reported. A once-promising vaccine program has crumbled under junta rule, and minimal testing, a lack of official data, and widespread public distrust of the military means no one has a clear idea of the extent of the crisis.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said one doctor who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals. "We are seeing patients deteriorating and people dying everyday."
Joy Singhal, head of the Myanmar delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the "rapid rise of COVID-19 in Myanmar is deeply concerning and in recent days around a third of people tested are positive."
"This rise of cases has placed the entire health system under huge strain," he said. "We urgently need greater levels of testing, contact tracing and vaccinations in all areas of the country."
In the absence of a functioning medical system or official national COVID-19 plan, and with a public distrustful of anything linked to the military junta, a network of underground doctors and volunteer groups are trying to plug the gaps. — CNN
