This article was first published on the 10th of June, 2020 by Patrick Carpen.
Last updated: June 11, 2020 at 23:23 pm
In the last seven days, Brazil recorded 7,096 deaths from covid-19, an average of 1,013 per day, according to figures from the World Health Organization.
While governors from almost all of Brazil relaxed the rules on isolation, the country recorded in the last seven days the highest average of deaths caused by the novel coronavirus worldwide. This leaves the United States and the United Kingdom behind, countries that have had the highest absolute numbers of deaths so far.
In the previous week, Brazil recorded 7,197 deaths from covid-19, an average of 1,028 per day, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO). The USA, which tops the list of deaths from the pandemic, registered 5,762 deaths in the same period, an average of 823 per day. The United Kingdom, which ranks second on the list of deaths, recorded 1,552 deaths in the last seven days, an average of 221 per day.
Brazil also surpasses countries where the disease curve is upward, such as Mexico, which registered 3,886 deaths from covid19 in the last week, an average of 555 per day. According to experts of the state, the high number of deaths is a result of the lack of national coordination of policies to combat the pandemic and the tendency is for the situation to worsen with the flexibility announced by the governors and defended by President Jair Bolsonaro.
“Actually, this result is the consequence of poor handling of the pandemic in the country. Brazil started well with Minister (Luiz Henrique) Mandetta (fired by Bolsonaro in April), but now he is making a terrible mistake by relaxing the social distancing measures just as we are approaching the peak of the curve,” said epidemiologist Pedro Hallal, dean of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel).
According to him, surveys show that in the last week Brazil assumed the first global position not only in absolute numbers but also in the average relative to the death rate according to the population.
For Professor of Health Geography at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Raul Guimarães, Brazil goes against the world by easing isolation measures while the disease is still growing in various regions of the country.
“Brazil entered a vicious circle. It seems that we are stepping on quicksand,” says Guimarães. For him, the result should be the prolongation of the crisis in the country, accompanied by an increase in the number of victims.
“By the calculations we made in May, with the isolation rates still high, the state of São Paulo would reach the peak at the end of June and start to fall in August, but what we are seeing now is that it will extend further. We have not yet made a new calculation, but the crisis should go on until October or November,” said Guimarães, who classified the quarantine carried out in the country as “half-hearted.”
According to Guimarães, the current rate of spread of the disease, combined with the relaxation of social distancing measures in several cities, could lead to a doubling of the death toll by the end of July.¨”This is exponential. And the worst thing is that in addition to the quarantine being badly done, the resumption is also badly done, without monitoring. The crisis will drag on for months,” he said.
The mayor of São Paulo, Bruno Covas (PSDB), announced the reopening of street commerce starting this Wednesday, 10th of June, nine days after Governor João Doria (PSDB) announced the Plan São Paulo, for a gradual resumption of activities according to each region of the state.
In cities that reopened street commerce, such as Campinas, what we saw were huge agglomerations in the commercial regions, with no possibility of maintaining the minimum distance to avoid further contagion. Bolsonaro downplays the severity of the pandemic and tries to hide numbers.
On another front, Bolsonaro, after trying to hide the numbers from the pandemic, went to social media to explore a WHO speech about the possibility that the coronavirus cannot be transmitted by infected people who are asymptomatic.
But on Tuesday, 9th of June, WHO reported that there is no evidence that individuals with antibodies do not transmit the disease. Since March, Bolsonaro has minimized the pandemic: he has already called the covid-19 “little flu”, joined demonstrations in support of the government which are contrary to medical guidelines, defended the end of social isolation, and recommended the use of chloroquine for patients, although there is no scientific proof of the remedy’s effectiveness.
Related: Coronavirus Report by Country
