What is it about?
Peru has become one of the most affected and infected countries by COVID-19. The expansion of the virus could not be contained by a complete lockdown and a state of emergency. The reopening of the economy increased the expansion of COVID-19. Peru’s role in the international division of labor, the country’s company structure, high levels of informality and the general use of temporary contracts are the structural conditions on which the expansion of COVID-19 in Peru rests. For in Metropolitan Lima, districts with a more than average rate of informality have also a more than average rate of COVID-19 infections. In this article, it is argued that COVID-19 is not a democratic virus but a class virus. As such it is contended that the neoliberal development model has been responsible for the government’s limitation to implement measures according the country’s social and economic structure that might have contained the expansion of COVID-19.
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Why is it important?
Without acknowledgement of the structural conditions for the expansion of COVID-19, it will be difficult to prepare effectively for future pandemics.
Perspectives
A social and economic structure that contributes to the expansion of COVID-19, a development model that through the elimination of the regulating role of the State and the privatization of its social obligations has converted the country in a permanent social emergency, leading to the incapacity of the government to develop and implement measures against the expansion of COVID-19 in accordance with the country’s characteristics, makes discussions over the future design of the social and economic structure of Peruvian society and the role of the State in society more than urgent. These discussions should begin with the current economic development model.
Dr Jan Lust
Universidad Ricardo Palma
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Class Analysis of the Expansion of COVID-19 in Peru: The Case of Metropolitan Lima, Critical Sociology, February 2021, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0896920521991612.
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