Hi Tom,
In general, Panama is very nice and its people are easy to live with. The climate is excellent (especially for those of us escaping snow) and the availability of many different types of climate to suit your needs is second to none. However, this pandemic has highlighted the fact that we have a very draconian government who have the explicit backing of the National Police to do pretty much anything they want. Lawyers I speak to tell me that the measures brought in by the government go against the Panamanian Constitution, but they just don’t care as there is no real opposition. In general, the Panamanian people will unquestioningly do what the government dictates, they just don’t have the background rebellious nature of some Countries. If that bothers you, then this is not the place to be. However, for me, the positives outweigh the negatives (I likely wouldn’t be saying that if we were still under house arrest) and I do like it here. Hopefully, as we come out of this thing cooler heads will prevail and a more sensible approach to these sort of problems will be developed.