Brazil in free fall

Deaths in Brazil are at their peak and the country is reporting more new cases and deaths per day than any other country, enabled by political dysfunction, widespread complacency and conspiracy theories. On Wednesday, the country surpassed 300,000 Covid-19 deaths, with roughly 125 Brazilians succumbing every hour.

Intensive care units face dire shortages and essential medicines are only available at an exponential markup. “We have never seen a failure of the health system of this magnitude,” said Ana de Lemos, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders in Brazil.

President Jair Bolsonaro has promoted ineffective drugs, played down the threat of the virus and fueled fears about vaccines. Many of his hard-core supporters believe his instincts are sound. “There was one solution: to listen to the president,” said Geraldo Testa Monteiro, who lives in Porto Alegre.

Mr. Bolsonaro and other politicians have also resisted lockdowns, which epidemiologists say could have been avoided if the government had promoted masks and social distancing, and more aggressively pursued vaccines.
The New York Times