Latin America is now the component of the overall maximum affected by COVID-19, either by cases shown or by deaths. The region is recovering from overburdened fitness systems, deteriorating economic situations and the expansion of popular unrest. But where reports have painted an image of a continent bankrupt, we see a trend of infection and government reaction that varies significantly from country to country. This has been the case in North America and Europe.
COVID-19 thrives on institutional vacuum cleaners. Countries that have suffered the most in Latin America, as elsewhere, are dealing with serious inequalities and low state capacity. Significant percentages of the workforce in these countries are also contracted informally, making it difficult for staff with tax cuts or refunds. On the other hand, the virus has done less damage where there are strong and valid governments, giant formal sectors, effective fitness systems, willing and reputable police forces and high degrees of social trust.
But the biggest determinant of all turned out to be leadership. Countries that have been among the most affected and have been upticks in instances and mortality rates in the region are led by politicians who have minimized the severity of the crisis, denying that the government can do anything, or put in position poor political responses that have condemned many others. thousands of others across the Western Hemisphere to unnecessary death.
The arrival of COVID-19 in Latin America was largely a matter of position and luck, as in the rest of the world, countries that are poles for the outside world and industry have been hit before and harder than those that are relatively isolated. Mexico, latin America’s two largest economies, were the first two countries in the region to show cases, either from Italy. The spread of the disease in these and other economically linked countries, such as Argentina and Colombia, followed the global style of first-contact via and then immediate spread in densely populated urban centers.
But the most remote countries have also suffered this, by mere chance: in just two days at the end of March, the Ecuadorian town of Guayaquil recorded three hundred deaths – it is unknown how many of them were related to COVID-19 – and their health and mortuary situation. The systems soon collapsed, why Guayaquil of all positions?The city’s historical link to Spain, one of Europe’s first hot spots, proved fatal. Ecuadorians are the largest immigrant organization in Spain, and many of these immigrants are from Guayaquil. Many return every year in February to celebrate the city. Carnival. This return home in 2020 was probably a widespread event. In early April, when most countries in the region were putting up blockades, Ecuador faced a primary humanitarian crisis.
Uruguay’s initial outbreak in mid-March was not even more likely. A prominent fashion designer had come from Spain and had finished a wedding with 500 guests, unknowingly infecting much of Montevideo’s elite. But since then there have been no widespread occasions, and Uruguay has one. One of the lowest reasons consistent with capita case rates in the world. An explanation of this is that Uruguay is not a main center for regionalArray nor is it a main tourist destination (its beaches attract many Argentines and Brazilians, but the arrival of COVID- The 19 coincided with the end of summer, and highs were left). The country’s relative isolation prevented similar waves of reinfection and, combined with an effective government response, helped it avoid the plight of some of its neighbors.
While early onset was partly a matter of luck, the spread of the disease once it arrived in Latin America took a course in large part, which caused us to decide through political and economic agreements. The region is the most unequal in the world, a fact reflected in access to physical care and other social services. The virus has taken advantage of the division between rich and poor, originating in the elegance of the jet-set but causing maximum damage in marginalized communities.
This was the case in Chile, where the first to contract the disease were members of Santiago’s elite returning from a holiday in Europe. The government controlled to involve the initial epidemic in several luxury neighborhoods of the capital, where houses were sometimes large enough for patients to isolate themselves comfortably and effectively, but many of those apartments were occupied by domestic workers, who brought the disease to their families in the poorest and most populous areas; in this way, the acute disparities of elegance in Santiago not only contributed to the spread of the virus. country, but also disproportionately passed the burden on the poor.
Chile’s forked fitness care formula, itself a product of inequality, aggravates the problem: the deficient are less likely to have access to sufficiently good fitness services or a sufficiently good living area and are more likely to pass the disease on to others. the survival rate of COVID-19 patients in personal (and expensive) hospitals was twice that of patients in the most deficient public hospitals; on the other hand, Uruguay, which has a more equal society and a nationally incorporated fitness formula, has not noticed such disparities, and its COVID-19 mortality rate remains lower than that of many European countries.
Like inequality, chance has hampered government efforts to control the spread of the disease. Informal staff, occasionally underpaid and unlicensed due to poor health, simply cannot comply with orders to stay home. Meanwhile, governments cannot help those personnel because they are not registered or taxed. While Western European and East Asian countries have been able to impose relatively effective quarantines, Latin American countries with giant casual sectors have been forced to exempt many employees from their lockdowns and have had great difficulty in reaching even the smallest segments. vulnerable countries. population. Peru, where temporary staff makes up 71% of the workforce, ended its strict quarantine in early July despite a sharp increase. In an effort to lessen the social and economic consequences of their family orders, the country has intensified its cash movement programs, but even those efforts have had accidental consequences. The fact that many other people did not have bank accounts meant that the government had to hand over cash in person, leading to large rallies and the next contagion.
Even when employers’ closure orders were not weakened through exemptions or lifted prematurely, their implementation raised a problem. Many Latin American governments face the same mistrust of state establishments, and the police in particular, which have hindered the United States in implementing public aptitude. Many police forces, highly suspected and corrupt, have been unable to impose home maintenance orders.
But perhaps the most vital thing of all to decipher the trajectory of the pandemic in Latin America has been political leadership, and this has not been clearer than in Brazil and Mexico, although they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador responded to the virus with similar messages and inaction. The two leaders have tried to distance the the two leaders from the “elitist” technocratic regimes of the past and have undermined the messages of public fitness experts through a pleasing look at religion. he called COVID-19 “a little cold” and warned that nothing can be done to involve him. Obrador gave the impression on television in early March with a prayer card and said that his intelligent works and religion in Jesus would protect him.
Bolsonaro and López Obrador (following their unusual hero, U. S. President Donald Trump) refused to mount national campaigns against the virus, instead left these harsh paintings to regional governors and then blamed the governors for their supposedly brutal interventions. The technique had other effects elsewhere in the two countries, with adequacy results corresponding to regional economic disparities and the capacity and effectiveness of provincial governments.
Obrador overstealed some of his top counterproductive policies, such as his rejection of social estating at the end of March, when the number of instances in Mexico began to increase rapidly, but his new technique still lacked measures to enforce quarantine orders and building plans. test capability, which was among the lowest in the region with 0. 4 tests consisting of 1,000 people. The country has recorded more than 60,000 deaths to date, only Brazil in Latin America.
Latin America has suffered more than any other region as a result of COVID-19, but the pandemic classes are universal: luck and location may be the starting point of infection, but the spread of the disease is influenced by social conditions. Informality and weak state capacity have hampered the region’s response. The lack of national leadership in some of the most affected countries has been even more damaging. By undermining the fitness government and refusing to take office for the pandemic, specific leaders in Brazil and Mexico have uncovered a wave of unnecessary deaths.
However, leadership need not come from the national level, and in either country state officials have taken over, when Latin America nevertheless understands COVID-19 it will be because state governments have succeeded where their national opponents have. failed, providing sound policies and recommendations rather than empty promises.
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