It’s not what you could want, but what you should be aware of: we in Brazil are going to have an unhappy Christmas and a terrible New Year. With the arrival of 2021, the country will cross the shameful threshold of 200,000 deaths from Covid.
There are 184,827 official deaths as of Friday morning (18). More Brazilians died from the coronavirus in ten months than from respiratory diseases in a full year. Covid will soon overcome cancer, the second leading cause of death in the country.
Such mortality results from the grip of Jair Bolsonaro, Osmar Terra, Bia Kicis, and Caterva. Those responsible for excessive deaths have a first and last name. Often the same last name.
The Brasilia-based group of negacionists like to invoke population proportionality to say that our covidic mortality is low. With 88 deaths per 100,000 people, we fared even better than 94/100 thousand in the US and the terrible 115/100 thousand in Peru or 112/100 thousand in Italy.
However, the correct comparison would be with those who did the right thing. New Zealand: 0.5 / 100 thousand (that’s right, 25 deaths out of a population of 4.9 million). Uruguay: 3. Germany: 30 and already left for lockdown.
China, the likely origin of the pandemic, stepped on the ball first but responded in a way that only dictatorships can – with draconian restrictions on individual freedom. Although the numbers there cannot be trusted, the 0.04 / 100,000 mark humiliates any candidate for an autocrat under Ecuador.
There’s no way to be proud of having the third largest number of cases in the world at 7.1 million, behind the US (17.2 million) and India (10 million). But here, too, the Infamy Cup brings the Americans to the podium: The most powerful country has 4% of the world’s population and 23% of Sars-CoV-2 infections.
Brazil is not doing badly in the morbid championship. With less than 3% of the world’s population, we have almost 10% of cases of Covid. The difference, of course, is that in the land of the brave and free (half of them are unbalanced enough to vote for Donald Trump) vaccination has already started. Here it was just under great pressure that the Director General of the Ministry of Health spat out a half-hearted vaccination schedule.
If he no longer shows signs of incompetence and subservience, which seems unlikely given the background, hopefully vaccination will begin in March. But not for all Brazilians: by July 2021 it is guaranteed that a third of the population will be vaccinated.
Certainly if there are no more problems with the AstraZeneca immunizer, on which the Bolsonaro government made the only big bet (100 million doses by the middle of the year). It is true that if the President does not stop voicing doubts about vaccines, there may be a shortage of products – due to a lack of demand, as Minister Eduardo Pazuello would say.
There is no reason to be part of this unfortunate year 2020, which is already too late. It would be extremely unwise to do it by bringing together more than ten people with whom you are already in contact.
However, the Brazilians like to take risks. On the streets of São Paulo you can see more and more people walking without a mask or just wearing them over their mouths, if not just on their chins. What are you laughing about?
Maybe you are from São Paulo who already had Covid. Maybe. But what right do they have to show bad teeth as trophies of dubious immunity, stupid courage, aggressive indifference to others?
None. But they imitate the example and frown of the President of the Republic.
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