Latin America | How varying vaccine success will affect recoveries

Achieving collective immunity is a pre-condition for Latin American authorities to lift mobility restrictions permanently. We forecast that LatAm won’t reach that objective and pre-pandemic GDP levels until next year.

Chile will be the only LatAm country to achieve 65% collective immunity this year, thanks to a vaccination rollout that’s now faster than that of the US. This and a generous fiscal package should allow the country to be the region’s first to recover its pre-pandemic output levels.

Elsewhere we expect a sharp pickup in vaccination pace from H2 because of the flow of vaccine oversupply from rich economies and reduced bottlenecks.

Aside from the pace of vaccine rollout and the size and timing of fiscal support, we find that economies’ reliance on services and their pre-pandemic trend growth are also important for the economic recovery this year.