For the President of Brazil, one should not seek responsibility with the authorities. Jair Bolsonaro even admits to having a "clear conscience", while the coronavirus is claiming more and more victims in his country. Brazil thus became the second country to exceed the 100,000 dead mark on Saturday, after the United States. The largest country in Latin America, populated by 212 million inhabitants, also crossed another symbolic threshold on Saturday, that of 3 million people infected.
Some 478 deaths per million inhabitants
Above all, the reality could be much worse. The official figures must indeed be put into perspective due to insufficient testing, specialists estimating that the total number of people infected could be up to six times higher. For comparison, official data show that Brazil deplores 478 deaths per million inhabitants, a figure equivalent to that of the United States (487), but lower than that of Spain (609) or Italy (583 ). More than 1,000 daily deaths have been recorded on average for several weeks, as the pandemic enters its sixth month in the country.
The rate of contamination has accelerated in recent weeks in the countryside, in the interior, and in regions where the virus arrived later, particularly in the South and Center-West. On the other hand, it is stable in the south-eastern states like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the most affected in absolute numbers, and declining in the northern regions, where the situation was catastrophic in April and May.
On Copacabana beach in Rio, the NGO Rio de Paz organized a release of 1,000 red balloons on Saturday morning in tribute to those who died from Covid-19, with 100 black crosses planted in the sand.
Neste sábado, quando o Brasil completou 100 mil brasileiros mortos pela covid-19, o Rio de Paz, soltou mil balões biodegradáveis na orla de Copacabana em memória das vítimas. They representaram as vidas que se foram com a doença. pic.twitter.com/FmRmRIiBqt
- riodepaz (@riodepaz) August 8, 2020"The war of carelessness"
Ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) on the same day denounced “the arrogance of a president who chose to qualify this cruel virus as a small flu, defying science and even death, and who will bear in his soul the responsibility for thousands of lives lost ”. “It is the most devastating war that has ever befallen our country. The war of carelessness, of the absence of health policy, a lesson in inhumanity, ”declared Marco Lucchesi, president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
The pandemic has cast a harsh light on Brazil's inequalities, with the virus wreaking havoc in the favelas, particularly affecting black populations. He did not spare the natives of the Amazon, including a great cacique, Aritana Yawalapiti, died of the coronavirus this week.
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- Jair Bolsonaro
- Brazil
- Covid 19
- Coronavirus
- World