Coping with Covid-19 in Argentina: earliest impact on everyday life and work

Abstract

This paper reports on the ongoing impact of Covid-19 pandemic in daily life in Argentina, highlighting the initial consequences of the quarantine established on March 20th in an attempt to control the outbreak. We focus on the perception of the role of political authorities, the media and the impact on habits in everyday life, which are being re-shaped in this new context. Online interviews were conducted in different cities of the North, Center and South of Argentina, including the capital, Buenos Aires. This is an exploratory analysis of an ongoing public health event whose consequences are presently far from clear, but its current contours have forced people to modify their daily routines, if not their lives. We highlight extreme reactions, ranging from “indifference” to “panic” or “selfishness” with “solidarity” emerging as the desirable and adequate response to the situation of “mandatory social isolation” or quarantine. Amid the uncertainty regarding the present and the future, novel contours emerge that account for the specificity of a South American country marked by recurrent economic and social crises throughout almost its entire history. Argentina was already struggling with financial difficulties, rising poverty and a fragile labour market characterized by high rates of unemployment and informality. This already delicate scenario was worsened by the sudden irruption of the first cases of Covid-19.