Venezuela has an interesting strategy to force people into wearing masks. And that’s by using extraordinary punishment for those who don’t wear masks. The Venezuelan regime is forcing people into community labor if they are found in public without facemaks in Torbes which is a municipality in the western state of Tachira. Videos surfaced online of the punishments handed out to citizens not wearing masks.
#Tachira Cómo delincuentes tratan a quienes no usen tapabocas en sitios públicos. Es la medida que implementa las “autoridades” en el Mcpio Torbes, San Josecito.
Mientras, los presos protegidos por Iris Varela gozan de las bondades en revolución. #29Julio pic.twitter.com/EUWHCASuXP— Obeysser Prada T (@ObeysserPrada) July 29, 2020
The sign on the back of the lady shuffling reads: ” I have to do community service for not using a face mask”.
#Táchira Humillan y denigran a jóvenes que no se someten a la cuarentena en el Mcpio Guásimos. Sin embargo, a los guerrilleros que asesinan uniformados venezolanos, el gobierno de Maduro les da privilegios de apoderarse de territorios y ser llamados amigos de la revolución #31Jul pic.twitter.com/6Uwrz8DWbX
— Obeysser Prada T (@ObeysserPrada) July 31, 2020
While the boys are doing push ups they are chanting: ” I must not be on the street. Stay at home. Stay at home.”
These incidents are coming as Venezuela deals with their first real outbreak of COVID-19 with cases and deaths both jumping and soaring over the last month. Tachira is currently quarantined as they are experiencing concerning spikes. As of yesterday Venezeula had just under 10,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Thoughts: Crazy. At least they are not violent punishment. But this is one way to make people take things seriously. I know here in the USA if we had forced people to do hard labor for breaking quarantine or not wearing a masks, a lot of people who don’t want to wear masks would probably wear them (not advocating this I’m just saying). Obviously this wouldn’t work here in the USA but in general it goes to show that everywhere in the world is obviously coping and dealing with COVID-19. Citizens everywhere.. do you best, do your part, and mask up.