In the usually bustling streets of the downtown Santiago this week, Chilean great-grandmother Luz Maria Rios was ignoring a coronavirus quarantine and risking her health to sell Easter eggs.
FILE PHOTO: A stall with security elements is seen in the street market, during a preventive quarantine after the outbreak of the coronavirus disease , in Santiago, Chile April 8, 2020. REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza
The pandemic, which has tallied more than 1.5 million infections globally and more than 89,000 deaths, is entering its second month ravaging Latin America, claiming more than 1,300 lives in Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile alone. Among them is Matias Maximo, 24, who has sold roasted yams and bananas on the streets of Mexico City for the past three years, with an income of up to 600 pesos per day.
More than half of Mexico’s active population is employed in the informal sector, according to the statistics agency INEGI, generating 22.5% of its 2018 gross domestic product. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimates a contraction of 1.8% in the region’s GDP, which would push up unemployment by 10 percentage points.
“Previously I had tuberculosis and now I am afraid to go out in case it makes my health worse. I don’t know what to do ... my situation is quite critical,” she said.
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