COVID-19 Country Case Studies, El Salvador, Central America

TARGET GROUP: PUBLIC

OBJECTIVES

·        To facilitate an interdisciplinary epidemiological containment team set up to perform PCR tests across the country, especially in contagion hotspots.

·        To absorb the economic shock of lockdown and limit the pandemic's impact on households and businesses.

SUMMARY

The smallest country in terms of landmass in Central America with an area of 21 041 square kilometers, El Salvador's current population of 6.6 million also makes it the most densely populated country in the Americas after Puerto Rico and one of the more densely populated states worldwide. A significant diaspora community also exists, with a further 1.5 million Salvadorians living abroad: inward remittances represent 17 percent of the country's GDP. Recurrent adverse weather conditions (droughts and tropical storms) and natural hazards (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions) render El Salvador highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change and complicate efforts to boost agricultural production and food security. Poverty is therefore a persisting, multidimensional problem, with a moderate improvement recorded in the decade between 2007 and 2017 when the rate (defined as living on less than US$5.5 per person per day) fell from 39 to 29 percent. As elsewhere in the Americas, the pandemic already has a negative impact. Eight months after the election of a new government under president Nayib Bukele and his New Ideas party, the economy has been contracting under the effect of diminished economic activity, decreased aggregate demand in international markets, and a reduction in remittances sent to households mainly from the United States. This slowdown notwithstanding, the World Bank forecasts the economic growth rate to rebound to 4.9 percent in 2021.

REFERENCE: 

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/country-case-studies/february-covid-19-country-case-studies-(el-salvador).pdf?sfvrsn=36a912bd_1&download=true