• Last minute: the coronavirus crisis, minute by minute
  • Stadium.The maracanazo of corruption

Brazil remains firm on its way to becoming the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, for the first time, it exceeded the psychological barrier of 1,000 daily deaths (1,179 deaths were registered), reaching almost 18,000, and it continues to rise in the sad world ranking of patients. It is already the third country with the most confirmed cases (more than 270,000), only behind the United States and Russia, and at the moment there is no indication that things are going to improve in the short or medium term, quite the contrary.

Various studies indicate that Brazil could be about to become, if it is not already, the country in the world with the most cases. The figures may seem relatively discreet for a country of 210 million inhabitants, but the numbers are misleading. The tropical country is testing very little (3,462 tests per million inhabitants), making it difficult to gauge the real impact of the virus. A study coordinated by the University of São Paulo (USP), estimates that there are currently more than 3.3 million infected Brazilians, 12 times more than what the government data says .

One of the coordinators of this study, the physicist Domingos Alves , believes that the country is blindly waging the war against Covid-19: "The managers build field hospitals without having a real idea of ​​how many people will arrive the next day to be interned (...) Our projections are conservative, we have more than three million cases, that number warns that the number of cases in Brazil is already higher than in the US. Our epidemic is already at a fairly important point, "he said in an interview with the Globonews network.

The curve continues its upward pace without clear leadership at the head of the Ministry of Health. Two ministers left office throughout this crisis due to their differences with the president, Jair Bolsonaro, who continues to be against social isolation measures to avoid contagion. The last to throw in the towel was Nelson Teich last week, after continued pressure to stimulate the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 patients.

THE OBSESSION FOR CHLOROQUINE

Since then, the acting minister has been a military man with no medical knowledge, General Eduardo Pazuello , who this week appointed nine other servicemen to technical positions in the ministry. Bolsonaro warned that he will probably "be in office for quite a long time."

Taking advantage of the impasse, the Ministry of Health published a protocol that recommends the use of chloroquine . The document, which does not bear the signature of any healthcare professional, recommends it even for patients with mild symptoms, and acknowledges that "there are still no clinical examinations (...) that prove the unequivocal benefit of these medications." Patients willing to take risks should sign a text that warns that their clinical condition may worsen, since side effects can include everything from liver and retina damage to cardiac arrhythmias.

Former Health Ministers were reluctant to recommend the use of chloroquine fearing career burnout or even severe action by the Federal Council of Medicine. With a military minister, Bolsonaro no longer has that problem and can pretend that the country already has a solution to the crisis and is ready for everything to return to normal.

This substance, which in Brazil is relatively common because it is used to treat malaria, is an obsession of Bolsonaro from the beginning of the pandemic, something that he also has in common with Donald Trump. As early as March, it gave orders for the Army chemical laboratory to start producing it on a large scale and now it is working at a rate of one million tablets per week.

When questioned by the Brazilian initiative, the director of emergencies of the World Health Organization (WHO), Michael Ryan , remarked that each country is free to advise its citizens, but that in the case of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine the Official guideline is that its use is limited to clinical experiments.

Bolsonaro knows that the subject is controversial and that it causes rejoicing among his most loyal followers. In an interview with a blogger, he joked about proposing a way to resolve the controversy : "Have you seen how educated I am? Those on the right who take chloroquine, and those on the left, Tubaína [a soft drink]," he said. And then he laughed out loud.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Brazil
  • Jair Bolsonaro
  • Coronavirus
  • Covid 19

Latin America Coronavirus accelerates in Brazil, which surpasses France, becoming the sixth country with more confirmed cases

Coronavirus Bolsonaro accuses the WHO of encouraging masturbation and homosexuality among children

Covid-19Save whoever can in Brazil: suffers the worst phase of the crisis with Bolsonaro absent