Bolsonaro’s response to the coronavirus disaster in Brazil poses a threat to the world

The country on Tuesday reported nearly 3,000 deaths, a rise that accelerated this month. Last week, Brazil recorded a record 12,888 new deaths and more than 467,944 new cases, according to Johns Hopkins University figures. Experts warn that Brazil’s hospital system is on the verge of collapse, with occupancy close to or even exceeding capacity in more than half of the country’s states. Rather than going up, the daily numbers of coronavirus tests – the key to tracking and stemming the increase in cases – have dropped dramatically since December, and part of the problem is the emergence of a more virulent variant of the coronavirus in Brazil, which has spread rapidly since then. January triggered a global alarm: “If Brazil is not serious, it will continue to affect the entire neighborhood there – and beyond,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, warned earlier this month. “This is not just about Brazil. It is about all of Latin America, it is about what is behind it.” My colleague Terence McCoy wrote last week: “Patients are transported from one country to another – sometimes traveling hundreds of miles – in a nationwide search for hospital resources.” “Without ventilators, nurses are manually pumping injured patients’ lungs. Cemeteries are running out of space to place bodies. Refrigerated containers are waiting outside hospitals to bypass the surplus. All over the country people are dying at home, unable to get treatment.” It is impossible to overlook the role that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro played. Far-right sentiment crept into the pandemic – it considered the coronavirus little more than a “trivial flu” a year ago, and more recently in December, announcing that the outbreak had reached its “tail.” He contracted the virus himself but continued to promote unproven treatments and raged against the social distancing measures and other precautions called for by regional officials and his political opponents. McCoy wrote in a briefing on Tuesday, Marcelo Quiroga, a cardiologist who will move to health minister in the coming days, reaffirmed his loyalty under Bolsonaro’s oversight. For Bolsonaro. “The president is very concerned about the situation,” he said, and critics ask if this is true. Brazil’s lack of effective national coordination on the pandemic is, in part, Bolsonaro’s fault. Initially, he and his allies pushed for disinformation to downplay the virus threat and the effectiveness of social distancing and masks. Later, Bolsonaro questioned the value of vaccines, sparking anti-Beijing sentiment even when a Chinese vaccine was undergoing trials in Brazil. Last October, the federal government blocked plans to buy tens of millions of doses of the Sinovac vaccine, but with Trump gone and the infection spreading, Bolsonaro is in the midst of a humiliating transition. His government announced last week that it had ordered 10 million doses of the Russian vaccine. And it had to go to China, within reach, to order tens of millions of doses of a Chinese vaccine, in addition to the raw materials for mass production on Brazilian soil. China has spent months discarding resentment and distrust as the place where the epidemic began, but in recent weeks its diplomats, pharmaceutical executives and other influential people have submitted dozens of requests for vaccines from desperate officials in Latin America, as the epidemic is causing huge losses that are increasing day by day. after a day “. The New York Times. Beijing’s ability to mass produce vaccines and ship them to the developing world – while wealthy countries, including the United States, stockpile several million doses for themselves – has provided an opening to diplomatic and public relations that China has easily captured. Meanwhile, in Brazil’s turbulent domestic political landscape, Bolsonaro’s mismanagement presented a new opportunity for his main rival. Former left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva mocked the “foolish” Bolsonaro’s handling of the crisis. Lula announced last week that “this country is in a state of complete turmoil and confusion because there is no government,” expressing his regret for the lives that could have been saved, and warning that “the Corona virus is taking over the country.” Medical workers in Brazil are desperately trying to prevent this from happening. “We are trying to help people, but this disease is much faster and more aggressive than the tactics we use,” André Machado, an infectious disease specialist in Porto Alegre, told the Guardian. “It’s like we’re flogging a dead horse. This disease is going to kill more people in Brazil.”