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Brazil: Chaos Covid, political bankruptcy by Patrick Piro

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The Newspaper, the most popular daily of the Brazilian elite, redoubled its efforts on April 6 to situate the health disaster sweeping the country. 4,211 dead from Covid-19 in Brazil in one day, what is it? This macabre record equals the total bereavement in neighboring Paraguay since the start of the health crisis. Has the 2,000 daily death mark been crossed in twelve months? It only took a month to double that. The pandemic is out of control, alarms the Fiocruz foundation, the equivalent of the Institut Pasteur in France. The “Brazilian” P1 variant of the virus, much more contagious even than the English variant, is believed to be the cause of two-thirds of the contaminations. With a very new morbid picture: more than half of people in intensive care are under 40 years old, against 15% a year ago. The vaccination campaign has taken a considerable delay and the doses used are only 50% effective on P1. The health system is collapsing. And epidemiologists fear not only the spread outside Brazil of the hegemonic P1, but also the appearance of successors in this open-air culture medium that the country has become.

Jair Bolsonaro, head chef of chaos, is now aloud described as genocidal by his opponents. He laughs about it, suggests playing sports to strengthen his defenses and has been drunk for a year with his failure to manage the crisis. Disregarding massive prevention measures, he attacks anything that looks like a restriction on economic activity. He has just sacked his Minister of Health, an incompetent general appointed “provisionally” in June 2020 after a series of resignations from this post.

The persistence of this tragedy is an unfathomable source of perplexity, seen from abroad. An outcome in the United States does not even appear obvious for the presidential election of 2022. Bolsonaro is targeted by 111 requests for impeachment, but none has been examined to date: he has openly bought the “soft center »Deputies, ready for the most venal compromises to wrest positions, favors in the constituencies, and so on. Angry with the army staff? He is still supported by a good part of the military, to whom he has entrusted half of the posts in the government. Bolsonaro’s rating is certainly falling in public opinion, but remains close to a solid 30%. And if his action is judged negatively by half of those polled (a third more than six months ago), this is obviously still insufficient to unleash the wrath of the irresponsible economic and political elite against him. ‘brought to power, and for which we can despair that it will one day be accountable to a people in turmoil.

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