If the outcomes of a recent forum styled IMFBlog, convened by the International Monetary Fund to allow its staff and officials to exchange views on important issues are anything to go by the portents for a shorter term recovery from the effects of the covid-19 pandemic may well mask a gloomier scenario as the resurgence of the pandemic towards the end of last year threaten to erase prospects of an uneven recovery and add to the steep social and human costs which the malady has already inflicted in Latin America and the Caribbean.