As global COVID-19 deaths top 4 million, a suicide in Peru
AREQUIPA, Peru (AP) â On the last day of Javier Vilca's life, his wife stood outside a hospital window with a teddy bear, red balloons and a box of chocolates to celebrate his birthday, and held up a giant, hand-scrawled sign that read: âDon't give up. You're the best man in the world.â
Minutes later, Vilca, a 43-year-old struggling radio journalist who had battled depression, jumped four stories to his death â the fifth suicide by a COVID-19 patient at Peru's overwhelmed Honorio Delgado hospital since the pandemic began.
Vilca became yet another symbol of the despair caused by the coronavirus and the stark and seemingly growing inequities exposed by COVID-19 on its way to a worldwide death toll of 4 million, a milestone recorded Wednesday by Johns Hopkins University.