Bello The lockdown conundrum

摘要

SCORES OF street vendors set up an open-air food market this week in Huascar, a shantytown in north-eastern Lima, defying Peru's strict lockdown against covid-19. Hundreds of seasonal workers have broken quarantine, too, to travel back from the coast after the summer harvests to their homes in Andean villages. In locked-down Colombia, in Bogota suburbs like Ciudad Bolivar and Soacha, life goes on more or less normally. Vendors offer coffee and corn bread on the street. That picture is repeated in many poorer parts of Latin America. The virus struck the region a few weeks after it laid waste to Europe and the United States. Forewarned, many governments reacted early. By the end of March, 11 had imposed strict lockdowns while others had closed schools and imposed rules of social distancing. These measures have generally been popular, and they have almost certainly blunted the impact of covid-19 so far, saving thousands of lives.