The number of COVID-19 cases in Latin America and the Caribbean has placed the region as the global epicenter of the virus. Health professionals and regional experts warn that if nothing is done, the region will suffer primary setbacks, increasing poverty and emerging authoritarianism, as leaders see an opportunity to suppress dissent. Latin America, which accounts for 8% of the world’s population, has reported nearly 30% of deaths worldwide.
“We are deeply involved with the speed with which the pandemic is developing,” Dr. Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization, said at a recent press conference.
The reported deaths in the region exceeded 230,000, according to Johns Hopkins University’s knowledge, which places the death toll in the region as a total higher than that of the United States and Canada combined. If preventive measures are not maintained, the death toll could reach 438,000 in October, according to the World Health Organization’s Regional Director for the Americas.
Brazil is the highest hit country in the world, only the United States, surpassing 3 million cases of coronavirus and more than 105,000 deaths. President Jair Bolsonaro himself contracted the virus after refusing to wear a mask in public and proceed to public demonstrations at the time of the crisis. Bolsonaro’s wife and 8 government ministers also contracted the virus.
Bolsanaro fully recovered and used the experiment to minimize the virus by saying, “What are you afraid of? Face it.” His government’s lack of reaction has led governments and even gangs to set up their own locks.
Mexico City has never completely closed its doors, and Mexico recently surpassed Britain as the country with the third number of deaths in the world, with 54,000 deaths.
Other Latin American heads of state tested positive for COVID-19, adding Bolivian President Jeanine Aez and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who were hospitalized for a few weeks.
A United Nations report warns that if the region is unable to spread, countries can see another forty-five million people fall below the poverty line. The report says that as progress in inequality and poverty begins to corrode, so will democracy, with the prospect of civil unrest.
“The pandemic has arrived in Latin America at a time when the region is already suffering from a democratic disaster,” said Daniel Zovatto, principal investigator of the Brookings Institution’s Foreign policy and Latin America Initiative, referring to the wave of anti-government protests in the region last year in countries such as Chile, Venezuela, Honduras and Haiti.
“We were also in an economic scenario that was already trending downwards. When the pandemic arrived, it exacerbated and accelerated all these negative problems,” he said.
In some cases, such as El Salvador, Zovatto said That President Nayib Bukele had used the pandemic to consolidate the executive force of Congress and ideal courts, as it had a majority. But there are more serious examples, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, countries that already have authoritarian regimes, that have used the restrictions of coronavirus to suppress dissent and protests.
“We want to coordinate and speak with one voice to protect our interests,” Zovatto, of all Latin American countries, said, “so that the world knows that Latin America also wants help. If we locate this help, we will be in a very delicate situation.”