Latin America in the fight against the Coronavirus crisis: The impact on economic and political stability in the region

Abstract

The world has entered the third decade of the century, gripped by the global crisis and the COVID-19. These specific conditions have undermined the development and sustainability of the less prepared countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LCA). The authors show that the COVID-19 pandemic was the largest shock for the LCA countries in the social and economic spheres. Before the pandemic, the LCA states had rather modest indicators of economic development. They were strongly influenced by external factors of protectionism opposition to the free trade and the looming global economic crisis. They have accumulated deep internal contradictions of social inequality and low domestic demand. The economic situation in the LCA countries has become even more complicated due to the development of a pandemic in 2020-2021: it was characterized by a halt or decline in economic activity, growing budget deficit and public debt, decline in domestic demand for goods and services, decreasing export revenues, declining investments, businesses closure, rising unemployment and poverty. To contain the spread of coronavirus, prevent overstrain of health systems and reduce human losses, the LCA governments took a number of measures to overcome the COVID-19 crisis, which came down to general measures of population social support and direct measures against the spread of the pandemic, including vaccination which has become an issue of utmost importance in the absence of local vaccines and a shortage of purchased vaccines or delivered under the COVAX program. However, as it is shown in the article, the measures taken by the LCA states to protect the population and the economy from the strikes of the pandemic are insufficient; vaccination programs are almost completely dependent on external vaccine manufacturers and international assistance.