The South American country is suffering greatly from the coronavirus pandemic due to doubts about the government's management of the disease

Brazil: the South American giant is collapsing 

photo_camera REUTERS/UESLEI MARCELINO - A member of the Hupda indigenous people receives an injection of the Sinovac coronavirus vaccine (COVID-19) in the indigenous village of Santo Atanasio

Jair Bolsonaro's administration has provoked one of the biggest institutional crises in recent times. One of the great fallacies of 2020, "should the priority be life or the economy?", has been tested on the Brazilian population, giving a catastrophic result, and although the question is easy to answer, since without life there is no economy, it seems that for some of the public officials within the Bolsonaro administration, it has not been very clear.  The management of the pandemic has stimulated discontent within the country's public institutions, causing several clashes within his executive, the appointment of four health ministers, the resignation and dismissal of members of his cabinet, and the resignation of the military high command. With the arrival of the new strain incubating in Manaus, and almost all of the country's states running out of space in intensive care unit beds, Brazil has come under fire from international public opinion.  

In April, Brazil surpassed 13 million infected and becomes the epicentre of the global pandemic, entering its worst phase since the pandemic began. Authorities have reported 332,000 deaths, a number that continues to rise and ranks second only to the United States in the number of people infected, remembering that Brazil has a population of 210 million. At least 60,000 new cases are reported every day, and the trend is expected to decline at any time. When the contagions started to be reported around the world, the responses of governments were very different, from closing schools, regulating mobility, closing borders and applying containment, they produced different results all over the world, but if we look at the current situation in Brazil, it is not only that the decisions came late, but also that they were not maintained. In June 2020, Brazil began to record an average of almost 1,000 deaths per day, joining the United States and India as the countries with the highest number of deaths. In August the situation started to change, the number of infections and deaths started to decrease until the end of August, and this caused a "relaxation" within the public administrations, during the middle of the summer season. The hospitality sector began to reopen little by little, shopping centres, beaches, restaurants and tourist attractions began to be frequented by Brazilian citizens, and sooner or later this relaxation of measures would begin to take its toll. 

The number of cases shot up again at the beginning of December, with the number of deaths hovering around 700 a day, reaching almost a thousand deaths. Five of the country's most important regions, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Manaus, had their intensive care units (ICUs) stretched to the limit, with several of the deaths occurring in those days due to a lack of health care, as they did not have the equipment and facilities for hospitalisation.  

"All of us are going to die one day," he told reporters in Brasilia. "There is no point in running away from it, from reality. We have to stop being a country of sissies." These were the words of Jair Bolsonaro, when the second wave was in full swing, without any doubt, the president at the time dismissed what would happen months later. Just before the start of 2020, in the city of Manaus, the regional government decided to re-implement control measures, such as the closure of shops and the reduction of the hotel and catering business due to the serious health situation, which provoked a demonstration against these measures. 

AP/ANDRE PENNER -  -   Trabajadores sanitarios de Médicos Sin Fronteras visitan un campamento para realizar exámenes médicos y evitar la propagación de la COVID-19 en São Bernardo do Campo, en el área metropolitana de São Paulo, Brasil

Manaus became the worst place for the pandemic in Brazil at the beginning of 2021. The city has become a major opposition to Bolsonaro's policies. On 15 January, the president announced another delay in the vaccination day; he had promised 2 million vaccines from the AstraZeneca laboratory, but the government announced the delay of the plane carrying the doses 24 hours later. The citizens of this city decided to start a "cacerolazo" movement, which was then replicated throughout the country. In response to the serious health situation, the central government sent a mission to transport at least 235 sick people from Manaus by plane.   

The attitude of heads of state must always be responsible and sensible for the historic challenge of leading a country. President Bolsonaro revealed in July that he had tested positive, and during those days he was seen publicly without a mask and talking to people at the same time. After passing the disease, he published a photograph where he appeared with a box of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has not been approved by any international agency. Responsible has not been, calling once again for disinformation.  The president went on to urge Brazilians to keep working and not to let the country slip into a so-called economic crisis.

Brazil has a public health system, which is hard to finance but has the capacity to reach almost all citizens. How did Brazil get into this situation, the South American country had an advantage over the others, it could observe the evolution of the pandemic in Asia and Europe, and begin to make decisions. In the first days of March, the Brazilian government declared a health emergency and the Ministry of Health ordered the cancellation of all public events, but days later the contradictions and the struggle between the regional governments and the national government began, as the Bolsonaro administration opposed the recommendations made by regional leaders to fight the virus, So much so that he put pressure on certain public health officials to put aside the recommendations of social distancing, "Unemployment, hunger and misery will be the future of those who support the tyranny of social isolation" said the president on his twitter account in May 2020. 

This fight between governors and Bolsonaro provoked clashes within the executive branch itself, especially in the health ministry. At the beginning of the pandemic, he asked Henrique Mandetta, an orthopaedist and congressman, to resign from the health ministry because he asked the government to apply more measures and restrictions to prevent contagion, "I have just heard from President Jair Bolsonaro the notice of my dismissal from the Ministry of Health. I want to thank the opportunity they gave me, to be manager of SUS", (Sistema Único de Saúde, public health system) he posted on his social network twitter. 

Within hours, Bolsonaro announced his replacement, oncologist Nelson Teich, who was in charge of the Ministry of Health for only one month after he resigned. Teich had many differences with Bolsonaro including the use of the drug chloroquine as a treatment against COVID-19, "allowing the use at the discretion of the doctor does not mean recommendation by the Ministry, which will only take place when we have clear scientific evidence of how it works". The former minister also made clear his differences with the president when he said he had not been consulted before giving the order to reopen gyms, beauty salons and barbershops. During the short time he was in the cabinet, the distance with Bolsonaro was very evident. "This kind of problem is disastrous because it treats complementary and synergistic strategies as if they were antagonistic. The situation has been handled inappropriately, as if we had to choose between people and money, between patients and companies, between good and evil," Teich said before resigning. 

General Eduardo Pazuello would be the new Minister of Health, the third in less than 3 months of the pandemic and the one who has lasted the longest in office during the pandemic, he had a poor management since, at the beginning of his mandate, Brazil registered 14,000 deaths and 200,000 infected, when he finished in March 2021, the numbers had shot through the roof, with almost 300,000 deaths and 11 million people infected. They say he never went against the president, and when he was recruited by him to serve as a minister, he thought it would be a short assignment and that he would return to the Amazon with his troops, as he explained in his first interviews. "The president is thinking about a replacement; I will not resign, I am very proud to be here, I am fulfilling a mission; the position belongs to the president and he has this decision", these were his last declarations before being replaced by Marcelo Queiroga, the current Minister of Health.

REUTERS/AMANDA PEROBELLI  -   Un sanitario atiende a un paciente positivo a la enfermedad por coronavirus (COVID-19) en la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos (UCI) del Hospital de Sao Paulo en Sao Paulo, Brasil

Queiroga, a former president of the Brazilian Cardiology Association, is currently facing the biggest health crisis in Brazil's history. Of the 27 states that make up the Brazilian territory, 25 of them have more than 80% of their intensive care units occupied. March this year saw the worst days of the pandemic, with 2,800 people dying in just 24 hours. In Queiroga's first statements as minister, he made it known that he would stick to the same line and recommendations as his predecessor, and has not yet made it clear whether Brazil would be put back into a national quarantine. A major concern has been not only the mishandling of the pandemic, but the poor distribution of the vaccination campaign, as Bolsonaro's government has not been able to distribute the vaccines as promised. Brazil has bought doses from AstraZeneca and the Chinese vaccine Coronavac, but has only immunised 9% of its population; the short-term goal is to vaccinate 70 million people, which is a large number for a high-risk population.  

But the political crisis did not end with the health ministers, at the end of March Jair Bolsonaro decided to change part of his Executive, he decided to remove 6 of them, the most relevant were the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Justice. 

As a consequence of the dismissal of the Minister of Defence, Fernando Azevedo, the head of the Navy, Air Force and Army resigned collectively. The military high command not only made a gesture of solidarity with Azevedo, but also opposed Bolsonaro's decision. The Ministry of Defence, in an official statement, said that the resignation of Edson Pujol, head of the Army, Ilques Barbosa Junior, of the Navy and Antonio Carlos Morett, of the Aviation, would be replaced in the coming hours, and that it was supposedly a decision communicated in a meeting with the new Minister of Defence Walter Souza Braga Netto. 

The dismissal of minister Azevedo marks a dangerous precedent in the institutions, as the national government will have to measure whether every time it makes a decision of this nature, the result will be more collective resignations before the Bolsonaro administration. Azevedo made public his farewell letter "I thank the President of the Republic, to whom for one year after more than two I dedicated my total loyalty to the opportunity to serve the country, as Minister of State for Defence. During this period, we will preserve the Armed Forces as state institutions. I thank and appreciate the commanders of the Navy, Army and Air Force, and their respective Forces, who will never make any effort to meet the needs and emergencies of the Brazilian population. I leave with the certainty of mission accomplished". 

Michael Ryan, director of emergencies at the World Health Organisation (WHO), stated in his last appearance that "the situation in Brazil has worsened, with a very high incidence of cases and an increase in incidents of death across the country". The WHO recognises that the new Brazilian strain, through studies conducted by the United Nations and other agencies, is a more contagious variant and that authorities need to be aware of the situation. The new Brazilian strain, or better known as P.1, is a new variant that is twice as contagious, born in the cities of Manaus, and now found in the United Kingdom and other European countries, is more contagious and according to scientists can evade the immunity provided by a past infection. From the experience of this strain in Manaus, it can be concluded at first glance that the transmissibility could be doubled, i.e. the probability of re-infection with the new variant is 25% to 60% according to their preliminary report. The study was also able to determine that this new variant emerged in early November 2020. 

REUTERS/AMANDA PEROBELLI  -   Un sanitario atiende a un paciente positivo a la enfermedad por coronavirus (COVID-19) en la Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos (UCI) del Hospital de Sao Paulo en Sao Paulo, Brasil

On 26 March Brazil announced the creation of its own vaccine, the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, who could be a future candidate for the 2022 presidential elections, announced the new Brazilian vaccine by Butatan Laboratories, a public institution that decided to call the vaccine Butanvac. "Historic day for Brazilian science. With the approval of Anvisa, we will be able to supply Brazil, in July this year, with ButanVac, the Brazilian vaccine against Covid-19. 100% national production, without depending on any country for the supply of inputs," said Doria on twitter. Butatan's goal is to produce 40 million doses, this year and thus be able to help the vaccination campaign that has had few results. Butatan president Dimas Covas, referring to the production of the vaccine, said: "Since then, it has been an intense struggle, an energetic effort by the whole team, both from the point of view of production and international negotiations. Butatán will use an S protein to combat the more transmissible Brazilian P.1 variant, "this is generation 2.0 of the vaccine. We have learned from the previous vaccines and now we know what is a good vaccine for COVID-19, and this one already incorporates some of those modifications," said its president. 

During his administration, Bolsonaro has had two major critics of his policies, one being current Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria and TV presenter Luciano Huck, both of whom are projected as future presidential hopefuls in the 2022 elections. The governor has made public his differences with the president, "I read a demonstration in which President Bolsonaro said that he had done everything in his power and that the problem now belonged to the state of Amazonas and the mayor's office of Manaus. That is unbelievable. In another country that would have been called genocide. The president abandoned the Brazilians", said Doria. Within the ideological arc he represents a centre-right force, he would have to fight face to face with Bolsonaro for the conservative space in the country, "denialism is ruling the country, but it is time for us to react, for civil society to react, as well as the population, the press, the Congress and whoever can help. Or are we going to admit this for months and believe that it is normal and that the ideology of denialism is acceptable", declared the governor.

The TV presenter seems to have a strong chance against Bolsonaro according to the polls, Huck is a more moderate, centrist man who, during Bolsonaro's presidential campaign in 2018, gave his support. He is currently one of the most critical voices of President Bolsonaro, "we are in a catastrophic situation: more than 270,000 Brazilians have died from covid-1s, the average number of deaths is breaking records every week and the health system in more than half of the states is on the verge of collapse". His programme "Caldeirao do Huck" is one of the most watched nationally, broadcast on Saturdays for four continuous hours and has been on the air for more than 20 years. During the "cacerolazos" he was one of the people who took the lead and joined the calls "I'm going to make it clear again. This is a consequence, yes, of irresponsibility, lack of coordination, lack of respect, denial of science, and all the absurdities and crazy things we are seeing, hearing and reading from the Brazilian authorities", said the presenter. After the courts gave Lula Da Silva political clearance, the scenario for the 2022 presidential elections gets more interesting, the former president still does not rule out his participation in those elections, "if I were healthy and if it is necessary... I will be there to fight. But it's not my priority," Lula told Portuguese media outlet RTP.


Latin America Coordinator: José Antonio Sierra

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