Thinning the herd in South America. Nobody cares.

New York Times

The virus is surging in Latin America, pushing the region ‘to the limit.’

The outbreak is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean, prompting Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organization, to warn on Tuesday that the unfolding crisis had “pushed our region to the limit.”

Cases are surging in countries that took early isolation measures — like Peru, which is just behind Italy in its case count — and in those that ignored recommendations, like Brazil, which has the second-highest tally worldwide, behind only the United States, according to a New York Times database.

Forced to choose between watching citizens die of the virus or of hunger, governments are loosening lockdowns, even as they watch infections climb.

“We go to bed without eating, giving nothing to our children,” said María Camila Salazar, 22, a mother of two in Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city. The country has more than 40,000 confirmed cases and 1,300 deaths.

Ms. Salazar and her family, like millions across Latin America, collect cardboard, glass and plastic for a living, selling it by the kilogram. Their buyers closed during the country’s lockdown, just as she gave birth to her second child.

President Iván Duque of Colombia recently relaxed lockdown rules, allowing local officials to make the final call on regulations. The national caseload subsequently surged.

Some countries have also suppressed information about the virus. In Mexico, the government is not reporting hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths in Mexico City. In Brazil, which has confirmed 700,000 cases, President Jair Bolsonaro’s government decided to stop reporting the cumulative toll altogether; late Monday, a Supreme Court justice ordered the government to stop suppressing the data.

New cases reached a new single-day global high on Sunday: 136,000, with three-quarters in just 10 countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia. That adds to a global case tally of more than 7 million people worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths.