This book analyzes how COVID-19 impacted politics and how politics shaped the response to the pandemic in Latin America, the region which has become the epicenter of the global health crisis started in China. The volume brings together studies carried out in eight countries of the region – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay – and show how the impacts and outcomes varied a lot across the region depending on the political processes under way in each country in the years preceding the pandemic and on the political responses adopted by each government to deal with the health crisis.