[7] Transparency International cited El Salvador and Colombia as examples of an "explosion of irregularities and corruption cases" related to the handling of the pandemic in Latin America.
[9] On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
[15] On March 11, after the World Health Organization classified COVID-19 as a pandemic, President Nayib Bukele declared suspension of all educative activities in public and private schools all over the country for 21 days, followed by a solicitude to the Legislative Assembly of declaring state of emergency and state of exception, in spite of not having any COVID-19 confirmed cases.
[16] The Office of the Attorney for the Defense of Human Rights of El Salvador head, Apolonio Tobar, considered the actions taken by the government as "improvised".
[19][20] President Nayib Bukele banned public gathering of more than 500 people, prohibited most international travellers and shut down educational institutions on 17 March.
[22] On March 18, President Bukele announced the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in El Salvador, which was detected in the Hospital Nacional General "Arturo Morales", in Metapán.
[citation needed] On March 29, the Legislative Assembly approved a new decree in order to extend the exception regime for 15 days more.
[6] Furthermore, the second death was confirmed, an 89-year-old man from San Francisco Gotera, who resulted negative in the first test, but turned out positive in a second one practiced on 31 March.
[40][41] On 15 April, the International Monetary Fund announced the approval of 389 million dollars to El Salvador, with the purpose of strengthening the most affected places of the country.
[42] On 16 April, the Supreme Court of El Salvador ruled that the government couldn't confiscate vehicles, property or arrest people for allegedly failing to comply with quarantine order without congressional legislation approving the measures.
[47][48][49] Human Rights Watch has criticized the treatment of prisoners as humiliating, degrading and endangering their health in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[51] President Nayib Bukele's "containment centers" where thousands of Salvadorans have been detained for more than a month at a time without judicial review, came under criticism from human rights advocates.