COVID-19

Haiti has many surnames including "Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere", "Republic of 10,000 NGOs, and "at a Crossroads".  For all is beauty and potential, it remains held back by poor governance, political intsability, and crushing poverty.  It's a hard narrative to change when most of the coverage is of flawed elections (or no elections), power struggles, and protests.  If the Haitian government truly wants to change how it is viewed it needs to show that it cares about and invests in its own people.  The Miami Herald Editorial Board recommends starting with COVID vaccination - which has not yet taken place.  It would be a start.  

In the New Humanitarian, Jessica Obert writes that Haiti never fully recovered from the earthuqake let alone cholera, political instability, and subsequent natural disasters.  While Haitians themselves are resilient their government and the systems that are supposed to be in place to ensue their health, safety, and well being are not.   Haiti's ever-fragile economy had already contracted 1.2 percent last year due to protests and the pandemic could result in a contraction of 2.7 percent this year according to the Haitian Ministry of Finance.  Physcial distancing does not work well in settings where people are living day to day due to economic hardship.  If there are positives, Haiti's population is younger and it has a history of working together with the Dominican Republic on infectious diseases.  As with other countries, Haiti will be living with the pandemic for a long time to come.