Chile, the end of the "truce"

Chile has been one of the Latin American countries most affected by the pandemic. The measures taken to curb it still do not yield the expected results. The hospitals are overwhelmed by the avalanche of 6,000 infected people who come every day to seek care that the health workers cannot provide. Seven hundred health workers, doctors and nurses have been infected. As in many other countries, there is a lack of resources.  

Many people are skipping confinement and promoting demonstrations that bring together hundreds of people and generate new sources of contagion. Behind the social unrest in the country beats the explosive wave of protests that a few months ago kept the country on the verge of chaos.

The coronavirus led to a few weeks of calm, a kind of truce in the street demonstrations and the multiple incidents they caused. But the discontent of the modest people, far from being forgotten, is returning to the past virulence. The confinement caused by COVID-19 has aggravated the problems of many families who have no income whatsoever. Those living in poverty are being joined by those who have lost their jobs due to the closure of businesses and self-employed people, the majority group that confinement has left unemployed. 

The Government of Sebastián Piñera has taken clearly insufficient measures. The deadline for paying taxes has been postponed and a system has been set up to distribute food baskets in the most impoverished neighbourhoods, which have proved to be insufficient. In this situation, calls for demonstrations and protests come easily. 

For the moment, demonstrations have started in the poorest neighbourhoods. The Government's concern is that they will proliferate. The groups that led the protests of the previous months have already begun to issue calls to resume them where they left off. The Government argues that the damage caused then is now exacerbating the situation. The protesters argue that they must continue to fight against inequality, which is obviously very pronounced, more jobs and improvements in working conditions. The previous protests were met by fine words and promises from the president that have not been kept. 

Chile is one of the continent's most developed countries and offers the best economic data, but although poverty rates have decreased, recent years' improvements for the middle and lower classes have not materialized.