What will happen in a country like Venezuela, where hospitals have already collapsed, and institutions treat people as a latent threat that must be monitored and dominated at all times? Just in February, there were an average of 26 protests a day, largely fueled by a lack of basic services such as water.

On Sunday, President Nicolás Maduro announced that there were 77 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country, and claimed the infected were all “imported” from other countries like Spain, the United States, Italy and Colombia. He also declared that 135 people had been tested and that “two million more tests” would be carried out this week.

But it’s unlikely that a country in the throes of a deep economic crisis, with 3.7 million undernourished people and a health care system that’s been practically incapacitated by decades of poor management and corruption, would be able to manage the coronavirus. “These are the conditions for a perfect storm,” Dr. José Félix Oletta, a former minister of health, said earlier this month. “We could have a huge problem.”

The virus will ravage an already devastated system. Hospitals can’t serve the current population even under normal conditions. They are overcrowded, dirty and lack basic equipment and medicines. When I was doing my residency in Mérida, I often had to bring my own bottles of water in order to be able to wash my hands or face during shifts. Finding a working, clean bathroom was a challenge. In 2019, at least 50 percent of I.C.U.s reported significant shortages of medicine and supplies.

Just two weeks ago, 70 percent of hospitals didn’t have the tests to diagnose Covid-19. And there are only two centers authorized to carry out the diagnosis of the virus using molecular tests. One is at the National Institute of Hygiene in the capital of Caracas, and the other is the University of the Andes in Mérida, where I studied, which has the capacity to perform 20 tests a day. Testing kits, provided by China, will be transported to these centers alone — increasing the time required to obtain results and making the monitoring of the infection more difficult in a country of around 26 million people. (Since 2016, nearly six million Venezuelans have left the country because of its economic collapse and political instability.)