Credit Ana Isabel Carvajal
Costa Ricans Patricia Morera (right) and her daughter Ana Isabel Carvajal observing stay-at-home measures in San Jose.
Something else Ticos have been proud to see is the spirit of pandemic volunteerism. Health experts say another big corona-containment factor has been Costa Rica’s long-standing emphasis on controlling conditions like asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure, which can exacerbate COVID-19 infection. But quarantine makes it harder to get medications for those ailments into people’s hands, especially the elderly.
So the Toyota Rent-a-Car company in Costa Rica offered its cars and employees to ferry healthcare workers delivering those drugs directly to people’s homes – free of charge.
Credit Courtesy Toyota Rent-a-Car de Costa Rica
A Toyota Rent-a-Car driver (right) delivering medication to an at-risk patient in Costa Rica.
“At the end of the day we had a lot of assets we weren’t using,” says Andrés Lang, CEO of Toyota Rent-a-Car’s holding company. “There’s obviously no tourism in Costa Rica right now, but there are a lot of people at-risk for COVID-19 that we can help – and we want to keep as many of our people employed as we can.”
To be sure, Costa Rica has its own public healthcare problems. Diabetes rates are inordinately high and so, say critics, are healthcare spending rates. Meanwhile, out-of-pocket medical costs have begun to undermine the system’s vaunted accessibility.
Still, says Carvajal, this is Costa Rica’s moment to show the world – and express a little vindication.
“We are making history as a small country,” she says. “Look at us – it’s like we’re telling other, bigger countries that used to say we’re not very advanced, ‘Follow us!’
“We don’t have an army – and we are controlling this pandemic better than countries that have armies. So…think about it.”
If Costa Rica continues to keep the pandemic contained, it likely will give other countries – including the U.S. – plenty to think about.
Source link : https://www.wlrn.org/show/latin-america-report/2020-05-11/tico-triumph-how-little-costa-rica-beat-back-a-giant-coronavirus-pandemic
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Publish date : 2020-05-11 03:00:00
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