On March 12 in 2020, Marinez began to apply at a police academy in Caracas the capital of Venezuela OSRS Gold, and work toward the career of a law enforcement officer. On the same day following, the Venezuelan government announced its first two COVID-19 cases.

Then, it shut down all schools as well as shut down the borders between Venezuela and the neighboring countries and put six states and Caracas under quarantine. Marinez was stranded in transit and was confined to his uncle's home in a city that was more than 50 miles away from the capital.

In the space of two weeks, Marinez came back to Maracaibo, "without any money in my pockets," he said. Marinez tried to find work but found nothing in an employment market destroyed by the pandemic and a ten-year economic downturn.

Ten years ago, Venezuela, a petrostate under the presidency of Hugo Chavez, witnessed a slump in the price of oil. In 2017, the price of a barrel plummeted to just $50 from a record high of over $100 in addition, in the same year, the U.S. instituted wide-ranging sanctions against the authoritarian Venezuelan government.

"When the prices of oil began to fall in the early 2000s, there was not enough cash to purchase goods from abroad," said Alejandro Velasco, a professor of New York University who specializes in Venezuelan politics, in an interview on the phone. "As as a result there was no cash to sustain the economy."

Venezuela's coffers were already empty following the spending of its most recent oil windfall on social services such as subsidised food, medical services, in addition to literacy initiatives. Chavez also removed perceived dissidents from the oil industry following an attempted coup d'état, which affected production.

In addition, widespread corruption in the government has also hurt the economy, according to Paul Angelo cheap runescape accounts, a fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations who specialises in Latin American politics.