BRAZIL
Brazil is facing the Covid19 pandemic in the worst possible way with 108,620 confirmed cases of the disease and 7,367 deaths. However, under-reporting of cases is a reality. According to a research initiative promoted by large national universities, the number of infected can be 15 times greater, reaching 1.2 million people.
Brazil suffers a great problem with the impossibility of carrying out mass tests for the population. There are 1,590 tests per million people, besides having its ICU beds crowded in the largest states such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Ceará and other states.
Even without mass testing and with a small margin of confirmation of cases, the country is today the 10th in the world in more confirmed cases of Covid19. Even Brazilian state governors have admitted that under-reporting is a problem and that the numbers are at least five times higher.
To contribute to the problem, the Ministry of Health has approved a measure that authorizes the burial and cremation of bodies without the need of a death certificate. A measure that was refused to be taken in other countries when they were at their most difficult times in the pandemic, such as Italy, China and Spain, for example. In São Paulo, this week the city hall opened 13,000 graves to be used during the pandemic and the mayor said that “the worst is yet to come.”
On 04/16 the president of the country, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, decided to dismiss the then Minister of Health. At the time the country had 1,920 deaths from the disease, the minister always advocated that social isolation should be maintained, given that Brazil was in its early stage of the pandemic and that the situation could get worse if the measures were relaxed. However, Bolsonaro and his supporters were against this decision. According to him, Covid19 is nothing more than a “little flu” (which he claims to have contracted and recovered, but refuses to show the medical reports even at the request of Justice) and that “the people need to work”.
With the appointment of a new minister who shares Bolsonaro’s vision, some states and cities loosened social containment measures, which caused the numbers of infected and dead to rise, a clear consequence of what would happen.
Since the case curve increased, 18 of Brazil’s 27 states have decided to tighten social isolation measures. Four municipalities on the Great Island of São Luís will be the first Brazilian cities to adopt the “lockdown” as a response to the increase in the number of cases related to Covid19, a system already adopted in regions of China, Spain and in force in parts of Italy.
During the quarantine period the president would take to the streets and greet people, in a clear demonstration of denial of the isolation measures and insisting that everything is just an exaggeration. Jair Bolsonaro also said that “it is a fact that 70% of the population will contract Covid19, people will die, it is part of it”. When informed that Brazil had passed the death of China, he replied: “So what? I am the Messiah, but I do not do miracles”.
The mortality rate of Covid19 in Brazil is 7.0%, there are 210,000,000 people in the country – 70% = 147,000,000 million, that is, 10,902,000 deaths (theoretically) and the president’s answer is “it is part of it”.
For Bolsonaro and his supporters, the real problem is not the pandemic and the loss of human lives, the problem is the economic crisis. Since the disease was classified by the WHO as a pandemic, governments around the world have started to put money into their economies to prevent them from breaking up, created economic packages and gave small grants to the lower classes who without this government help would not have the conditions to remain in quarantine.
In Brazil, this aid came in the amount of R$ 600.00 (EUR 98.56) per person who qualified to receive the aid. About 97 million people applied for the aid, about half received it. According to the IMF, Brazil is expected to shrink 5.3% of GDP, the highest percentage since 1901. Because of this, the government has been creating a network of supporters to disseminate fake news, saying that the situation of the corona is built and exaggerated, disseminating false statistics on the information.
The Ministry of Health makes wrong comparisons with other countries on purpose and disseminates manipulated data. Government supporters disguise in social networks that people should return to work and even demonstrations were called “back to work.”
Doctors who work at a public health center (UPA) in a community in Rio de Janeiro have denounced to the media that the determination is to classify the death of community residents as “flu syndrome” and not corona. Favelas in Rio de Janeiro are home to around 1.5 million people, many without any basic sanitation and running water. The state has no interest in helping these people, on the contrary.”
Popular movements within communities try to alert residents to the real danger of the disease, but have encountered difficulties. According to one activist of the favela movement “Part of the people in the favelas are not obeying quarantine and social isolation, this is due to the pronouncements of this president who has created a process of misinformation of the population. In addition, the Pentecostal evangelical churches adhered to the president’s speech and say in the slums that covid-19 is not so serious.
And it’s not only the government that’s taking advantage of the moment to get rid of insignificant people for them (the poor), the country’s ruralists are taking advantage of the moment of social-political chaos and are attacking indigenous reserves to create mining wells. With the endorsement and support of the government of Bolsonaro, of course.
Deforestation in the Amazon has increased 30% compared to the same period last year (last year’s deforestation figures were record numbers). If it was not already problematic enough, the people who invade these areas of environmental protection are taking the Covid19 to indigenous tribes and some tribes suffer the risk of extinction.
During the years of Portuguese colonization, the Portuguese used diseases, smallpox for example, to exterminate entire indigenous ethnic groups and occupy their land.
The government agency with some autonomy, IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Natural Resources) conducted a mega-operation in the region to prevent the actions of these groups and to protect the indigenous populations in the region. During the period of the action the deforestation data reached zero and several materials from loggers and miners were destroyed. The action caused dissatisfaction in the government, which on April 30, through the Ministry of the Environment, fired the officials responsible for setting off and coordinating these security operations in indigenous territory.
The government has been going through a period of political instability due to the pandemic and aggravated by the measures taken by the president and his supporters, measures that cost the “super minister” of justice, Sérgio Moro, his job. Former federal judge and former justice minister Sérgio Moro is the judge in charge of operation Lava-Jato and the arrest of former president and main political opponent of Bolsonaro in the 2018 elections, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. On his departure from government, the former minister made a series of accusations against the president, announcing that it was in the interest of Bolsonaro to change command of the Federal Police to someone who would inform him of investigations involving him and his relatives.
Since Moro’s resignation on April 24, the government has been going through an institutionalized crisis, where forces loyal to the president have radicalized his speech and asked for military intervention and the closure of the Supreme Court and the National Congress, as well as the criminalization of left-wing movements.
On 04/20 the president participated in a demonstration called by his supporters, where they asked for the closure of congress and military intervention. He did so again on 03/05 even after being widely criticized, even by allies of the government, for having participated in April in this anti-democratic demonstration. On the second and recent occasion, supporters accompanied him carrying the flags of Brazil, Israel and the United States.
