Brazil and Peru are currently in the top ten list of countries with the highest COVID-19 positive cases. Mexico is not too far behind taking the 11th spot.

The coronavirus pandemic started to hit countries in Latin America one by one in the beginning of March. We have started hearing of the deadly virus from China three months before the outbreak reached Latin America. But even after months of planning, the virus seemed to move faster in wreaking havoc. Since then, several countries have declared a state of emergency. Others have imposed hard lockdown measures, curfews, quarantine rules, border closure, and flight suspensions.

The very first COVID-19 case in Latin America happened in Sao Paulo, Brazil on February 26, 2020. Three months after the first recorded case, numbers are still going up and it seems that no one has a concrete plan on how to effectively flatten the curve.

Continuous surge of cases

The world approaches the end of the second quarter of the year but it feels as if we have done nothing this year apart from fighting the virus. By this time, some countries have already successfully beat the pandemic. One example is Vietnam who has pushed its way ahead of the curve. As of May 20, they have recorded no local transmissions of the coronavirus for 34 days and have experienced zero deaths since the beginning of the outbreak.

Peru which now has almost 100,000 cases, is only one third the population of Vietnam. Peru currently has 31 million residents, Vietnam has almost 96 million. Clearly something has not been done right.

Villages in Ecuador lack medical doctors resulting in several people from rural areas falling ill and eventually dying without even knowing if it was the coronavirus or not. Residents of a fishing village in Ecuador had some villagers experience cough and colds last April. Since there were no doctors around, they were only given traditional remedies. Those residents that have fallen ill eventually died but since they were not tested for COVID-19 nobody really knows what killed them.

Almost all doctors in Ecuador are brought to the capital or to the largest cities leaving far flung areas unprotected.

Chile on the other hand, was handling the virus quite well in the beginning. The country had the highest testing rate in Latin America with over 14,000 tests done per day. They were also one of the first few countries to study "immunity passports" that will be given to COVID-19 patients who have recovered which will allow them to get back to work. However, the country's fight is still not over as it faces economic woes affecting its citizens. Few days ago, protesters staged a riot with the police growing angry over food shortages.

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Social Unrest spreading in Latin America

The coronavirus pandemic has caused a pattern of resistance which continues to increase all over Latin America. An increase in anti-lockdown protests are seen in Brazil, doctors and nurses in Mexico plead the government to provide them with more PPEs, and protesters in Colombia have resisted stay at home orders to march in the streets and demand for more food and aid.