Latin America accounts for 40 percent of daily virus deaths

In March, when COVID-19 was stamping out lives across the globe, Latin America looked like it might escape relatively unharmed. Its governments chose vastly different approaches to confronting the pandemic, from severe lockdown in El Salvador and Peru to relative laxness in Brazil and Mexico.

But as May heads into June, the news could hardly be more dire for the highly urbanized region of 600 million inhabitants — it is the new epicenter of coronavirus, representing about 40 percent of daily deaths globally now.

The statistics are chilling: Brazil has more cases than any country except the U.S. and some models forecast that deaths, currently at 25,000, could more than quadruple in coming months. Mexico had its largest single increase in cases and deaths this week, and a top health official said about 30,000 people may die.

Peru, Chile and Colombia have all set daily records in the past week.

Latin American countries reported more than 1,900 deaths on Wednesday, a record, accounting for 37 percent worldwide. Brazil, Peru, Chile and Mexico have each reported more than 10,000 new cases in the past five days, making them four of the top seven countries globally in that period.

“Many of the region’s largest cities are still several weeks away from their peaks,” said James Bosworth, author of the weekly newsletter Latin America Risk Report. “Hospitals will run at capacity for a long time, straining the health care systems. Even those cities and countries that do peak will see a multiweek plateau and a gradual descent rather than a sharp drop in cases.”

Complicating the assessment of the situation, like in many parts of the world, is the dearth of data and the fact that forecasting rates of infection and death have often proved unreliable.