A Class Analysis of the Expansion of COVID-19 in Peru: The Case of Metropolitan Lima

Abstract

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. In this article we discuss the principal conditions for the expansion of the new coronavirus in Peru and examine what part of the population is most affected and infected by the virus. We find that 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. This article shows that the laboring classes are the principally infected and affected by the new coronavirus. The Peruvian 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.