On March 12 of 2020, Marinez began to apply in a police academy in Caracas the capital of Venezuela and pursue becoming a police officer. The next day OSRS gold  following, the Venezuelan government announced the initial two cases of COVID-19.

It also shut down all schools, shut down the border between Venezuela and other countries and placed six states and Caracas as quarantine. Marinez was stranded in transit and was confined to his uncle's house in a city that was fifty miles from the capital.

Two months later, Marinez came back to Maracaibo, "without any money in my pockets," he said. He tried to find a job but could not find an employment market destroyed by the pandemic and a ten-year economic downturn.

Ten years ago, Venezuela, a petrostate under the leadership of Hugo Chavez, witnessed a plunge in oil prices. As of 2017, the cost of a barrel fell to close to $50 from a high of $100 in addition, in the same year, the U.S. instituted wide-ranging sanctions against Venezuela's autocratic government.

"When the prices of oil began to decline then there was no money to import the products," said Alejandro Velasco who is a professor at New York University who specializes in Venezuelan politics, in an interview via phone. "As an outcome it was impossible to find money really to sustain the economy."

The Venezuelan coffers were already empty after the country spent its largest recent oil wealth on social services such as subsidised health care, food along with literacy and health programs. Chavez has also removed perceived dissenters from the oil sector following an attempted coup by the military, impacting production.

A widespread system of corruption in the buy OSRS GP  government further damaged the economy, as per Paul Angelo, a fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations who is an expert on Latin American politics.