Ethnography of guilt in times of COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19, a new virus of the Coronaviridae family that causes atypical pneumonia, appeared suddenly, generating a global crisis, with serious effects on economies and health systems. In addition to negative effects at the psychosocial level that in many countries are presented as mental health effects expressed in fear, stress, frustration, anxiety, anguish and suffering. In Ecuador, the government, using the media, has romanticized health workers in Ecuador, placing them at the level of heroes who face the first line of the pandemic, however, the reality is different, reflected in precarious jobs, little protection and biosecurity, adding with social stigmatization, fear and guilt of being carriers of the virus and contaminating their families. While calling them heroes, they are laying off hundreds due to cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This article presents ethnographic accounts that narrate the experiences of human beings strongly marked by death, by the feeling of loss such as health workers, who have had to reorganize their lives and senses about terrible experiences of impotence and guilt, when their His work, experience and all his training were not enough to save lives.