Concerns of Latin America in times of COVID19
Public health is not the only issue in most countries of Latin America due to the general crisis created in the whole world because of the arrival of this pandemic, but It is a critical issue as it affects the lives of millions of people. On the other hand, the arrival of COVID19 has generated a red alert in lots of other aspects of the economy threatening democracy in Latin America.
We can start by saying that the region will show a decline in gross domestic product and then possibly several years of low economic growth, political debates and what’s most disturbing is the increase in poverty, corruption and crime.
When the COVID19 hit Latin America, the region already carried a heavy load of economic crisis so it wasn’t strong enough to maintain itself firm. The dependence of the region on commodity exports and external financing, makes the situation even more serious, making scared investors to take their money from emerging markets. Because of this, many countries are asking the IMF for help to finance emergency spending.
Another situation that was already critical when the pandemic started was unemployment with an 8.5% in 2019, which also leads to an increase of poverty and its obvious these two aspects will worsen with the actual crisis.
Democracy is also in a fall back in most of the region’s countries as it can be a victim of populism or even authoritarianism, as can be the case of Venezuela were Maduro’s regime uses repressive tactics to reinforce quarantine. In some countries like Brazil and Mexico, democracy has suffered a decay, and this is also because the military have increased their presence towards power.
Disinformation about the virus in terms of ways of transmission and the general implications among Latin American’s is generating unnecessary and unreal panic among citizens due to the use of social media as their main source of information.
The future of the region’s politic situation depends on the ability of all the region’s governments to address this crisis. Panama is the perfect example with a model of aggressive monitoring and testing of the virus.