![]() Testing wasn't widespread even before the storms. But many of these areas are still without power. So far aid officials haven't seen a spike in COVID-19 cases linked to the shelters and the aftermath of the hurricanes. In the past, we could get them within 12 to 24 hours." So now we struggle to get specialty teams in from one country to another. "There are restrictions around testing and entrance and exits," he says. McAndrew says COVID-19 travel rules make it hard to get relief teams in to disaster zones. There's heavy damage, and the region's been heavily affected."Īnd for relief agencies, such as the Red Cross, the coronavirus pandemic makes getting help to people affected by a disaster far more difficult. "And then the second hurricane Iota also had a direct hit on the San Andrés islands, which are part of Colombia. "Hurricane Eta affected almost all of Central America, including Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Nicaragua," he says. Steve McAndrew, deputy regional director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, says his agency has relief operations in response to Eta and Iota now in seven countries. The record-breaking hurricane season displaced even more people in Guatemala. Agency for International Development has pledged millions of dollars to help respond to the crisis.Īnd it's not just Honduras. "This is Mitch-scale if not bigger." The United States through the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Central America, about Eta and Iota. "The damage in terms of costs, destruction, damage to agriculture is just as high" as from Mitch, says Hugo Rodriguez, U.S. Mitch hit Honduras in 1998, leaving 3 million people homeless and prompting tens of thousands of Hondurans to migrate to the United States. "And now they're trying to isolate them as much as possible."Īid officials say that the damage from hurricanes Eta and Iota rival that caused by Hurricane Mitch, one of the deadliest Atlantic storms of all time. "We were seeing shelters where you have like 15 people who'd tested positive," Uzevski says. Yet cases are being detected among the displaced. Worrying about COVID-19 isn't at the top of their priority lists. These are people that lost their homes and they moved here. "But the problem is this is their secondary problem. "They are trying to follow these rules," he says, emphasizing the word trying. ![]() And volunteers running the shelters are actively trying to minimize the spread of COVID-19 by spacing out mattresses on the floor as much as they can and aligning them so people sleep head to toe rather than face to face. He says not everyone is wearing masks but most are. "And I was really happy to see signs (at the shelters) saying, 'Wear mask! Wear mask!' and 'Don't enter the shelter without mask.' " "I'm really paying attention on this side of the story," he says. He says one of his first concerns was how COVID-19 might be spreading at the shelters. Uzevski has been touring some of them to get a better sense of the needs of people displaced by the storms. Helping set up temporary water distribution points is one of the things Project Hope is working on in the area.Īccording to government figures, there are 118 official shelters in the Santa Barbara department, holding nearly 6,000 people. ![]() "The water system of the Santa Barbara department is 100% collapsed," he says. Santa Barbara was hit hard by the rains and ensuing mudslides of Eta and Iota. It's west of the nation's second-largest city, San Pedro Sula. ![]() The Santa Barbara department is one of the 18 departments or states in Honduras. Uzevski is leading an emergency response team in the Santa Barbara department in northern Honduras for Project Hope. He said Honduras has been battered this year by a combination of forces like no time in its history. "It will rebuild the dignity of hundreds of thousands of workers who because of the pandemic and now the storms lost their jobs, their homes." "This investment will generate jobs, jobs that so many need, and it will put money into the pocket of hondureños," the president said. Hernández announced a plan to invest four times the nation's annual budget in infrastructure and social programs to help Hondurans recover from the devastating storms.
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