In 2020, I wrote an article for Medium.com, way before the international media picked up on Uruguay’s exemplary response to Covid that in a pandemic there is no place I would rather be than Uruguay.
Uruguay never had a mandatory lockdown. Instead the new government–which had come into power on March 1 2020 just thirteen days before the first Covid 19 cases were announced in Uruguay–called on citizens to exercise ‘responsible freedom’ (‘libertad responsable’).
This policy worked very well for the first nine months when Uruguay appeared as a case to be emulated. Numbers of cases began to increase significantly after a year. The reasons can be disputed—proximity and dry borders with Brazil and Argentina, pandemic ‘fatigue’, belief that once vaccination started the battle was won, are the main ones.
Despite that, we had privileged freedom of movement, city dwellers respectfully wore masks and the uptake for vaccines is strong.
Uruguay has a long history of carrying out successful health campaigns and Uruguayans are used to getting vaccinated. All Uruguayan children must be vaccinated to attend school and having your vaccinations up to date is a requirement for anyone wanting to join a sports or leisure centre here.
So though vaccine roll out started later than in many parts of the world because as a small country it took some time to import supplies, Uruguay was amongst the top 10 of countries with most citizens vaccinated. By the end of July 2021, it became evident vaccines were controlling the pandemic in Uruguay. In part because Uruguayans were overwhelmingly eager to get vaccinated.
We wrote on a regular basis on the ground what it was like living in Uruguay in a pandemic and Uruguay’s covid response as a society. The most salient articles are collected here:
In 2020 Guru’Guay covered the stories of eight foreigners who found themselves stuck in Uruguay when the borders closed in March for El Pais, Uruguay’s oldest national newspaper. Uruguayans LOVED reading the stories—they are generally a very self-critical lot and found the appreciation for their country unexpected.
You can read them here in English. You’ll definitely get an idea of what Uruguay is like in times of crisis. Good to know, right?
