Inequality in developing countries is set to deepen as people—already battered by job losses caused by lockdowns—face the high cost of medical treatment for Covid-19
The continuing spread of Covid-19 in poor countries hasn’t only truncated hopes for an economic recovery. It has also bankrupted families who had to spend their life savings trying to help loved ones who were infected.
For the relatives of the seriously ill, that can mean crushing medical bills to pay for oxygen, doctors and medicine in countries with patchy health systems and virtually no social safety nets. Some families have raffled off cars or pawned appliances. Others sell small plots of land or plead for help on crowdfunding websites. In Peru, local media reported a man offering to sell a kidney to secure a spot in a hospital for a sick family member.
, as members of a vulnerable middle class—already battered by job losses caused by lockdowns—are driven back into poverty. From Lima to New Delhi, there is a deepening divergence with a rich world that is slowly returning to normal thanks to coronavirus vaccines. “For these families, they will be bogged down by debt, and we don’t know for how long,” said Monica de Bolle, a Brazilian who is a senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics, a policy analysis group in Washington. “You dig this inequality hole even deeper.”
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