The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) projects that the number of people in poverty in Panama will increase this year by 2.9% due to the pandemic , and within this group the number of people in extreme poverty will grow 2.0 %.
A report by ECLAC estimates that 6.5% of the population was in extreme poverty in 2019 in the country, however, it projects that due to the Covid-19 crisis the number will rise to 8.5% in 2020. It also mentions that in 2019 the population in poverty was 14.6% and for this year it will be 17.5%.
In the country, there is an estimated population of 4.2 million inhabitants and if ECLAC estimates are taken into account, it is expected that by 2020 it will end with a total of 735 thousand people in poverty and 360 thousand in extreme poverty.
Throughout Latin America, this United Nations agency proposes that the number of people in poverty will increase by 45.4 million in 2020, with which the total number of people in poverty would go from 185.5 million in 2019 to 230.9 million in 2020, figure that represents 37.3% of the Latin American population.
Public Health specialists like Jorge Motta have argued that there must be a "balance" between the health and economic measures established during this pandemic, so that the country can be rescued in both directions.