By 23 March 2021, Brazil had the second highest number of deaths and cases of Covid-19 in the world: 300,000 deaths and 12.13 million cases had been recorded, after the US’s 544,000 deaths and 30 million cases. President Jair Bolsonaro has now had four different Health Ministers and despite a recent Supreme Court ruling, has no clear prevention and vaccination plan. For Bolsonaro, avoiding an economic shutdown has been the priority, wilfully promoting the spread of this deadly infection, imposing mass deaths across the country and creating a hotbed of viral mutations with international consequences. Annaís Berlim and Alvaro Michaels report.
Genocide
On 23 March, Brazil registered its highest daily death toll yet with 3,251 people dying within 24 hours. Covid-19 units in all but two of Brazil’s 27 states were at or above 80% capacity, and in seven states above 90%. Some governors, city mayors and other local leaders are reacting desperately locally, where they can, if they can, and where they are pressed to by a furious population. Despite its greed, Brazil’s ruling class has lost confidence in its neo-fascist president, is deeply anxious about the 2022 presidential election, and is now putting pressure on Bolsonaro. On 19 March, a joint letter by the country’s governors called on the President to restrict the operation of airports, ports, highways, and railways. Yet Bolsonaro complained there was a war against him and took legal action – rejected by the courts on 23 March – against the governors of Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul and the Federal District, who had acted against the pandemic, including setting curfews. That same day, the National Front of Mayors sent Bolsonaro a letter asking for ‘immediate measures’ to address critical shortages in supplies and medicines, including oxygen and sedatives. The Minister of Foreign Affairs called for help from other countries. There have been recurring, if veiled, threats of impeachment against Bolsonaro.
Since 1989 Brazil has had a publicly funded Unified Health System (SUS). SUS is the largest non-discriminatory government-run public health care system in the world, supposedly serving the 80% of the population who cannot afford private medical insurance. The system was designed to be entirely free at the point of service for anyone, including foreigners. Despite Bolsonaro’s privatisation attacks on this system, it could have been central to a Covid-19 strategy. However, the Brazilian Centre for Research and Studies in Health Law, the Faculty of Public Health at Sao Paulo University, and ‘Human Rights Conectas’ examined 3,049 laws, decrees, decisions, and resolutions passed until January 2021. These demonstrated a direct clash between the Federal Government’s systematic propagation of the virus, and resistance by SUS and regional authorities.
The report ‘reveals the commitment and effectiveness of the actions of the government in widely disseminating the virus … openly aiming to resume economic activity as soon as possible and at any cost’. It also shows a timeline of constant federal obstruction against local initiatives, and constant propaganda attacks on public health initiatives. The authors call for urgent discussion of ‘the crimes against public health, crimes of responsibility and crimes against humanity’ during the pandemic in Brazil.
Bolsonaro’s deliberate policy of obstruction places his actions within the UN’s definition of genocide, as ‘Causing serious bodily or mental harm …’ and ‘Deliberately inflicting… conditions of life calculated to bring about …physical destruction in whole or in part.’
Examples of Bolsonaro’s morbid determination are legion, with his fake news, public appearances without a mask and rejection of social distancing. This racist blocked provisions in the Emergency Plan to Combat Covid-19 in Indigenous Territories, vetoed universal access to drinking water, stopped the free distribution of hygiene materials, stopped the emergency supply of hospital beds, intensive care units, the acquisition of ventilators and blood oxygenation machines, which are essential for the health of indigenous communities. By decree, he added beauty salons, barber shops and gyms to the definition of essential services that should remain open. He vetoed a project to provide financial compensation for health professionals harmed by Covid-19. Bolsonaro vetoed vaccine purchases by states, obstructed mandatory mask wearing and withheld resources intended for Covid-19 prevention.
Since February 2020, Bolsonaro has run a campaign of lies regarding drugs with no proven efficacy. More than R$23m was spent on advertising campaigns for the use of hydroxychloroquine as an ‘early treatment’. In May 2020, Bolsonaro ordered Army industrial units to produce hydroxychloroquine. By the end of 2020, about 3.2m tablets had been produced, costing R$1.16m, the Army being paid almost three times any acceptable price. With more than 400,000 pills remaining in stock due to lack of demand from states, the Ministry of Health and the Army began distributing them to indigenous villages in the north of the country, with what must be regarded as genocidal intent.
In Manaus, the then health minister, General Eduardo Pazuello, received an urgent request to replace exhausted oxygen reserves. Instead, he tried to persuade local doctors to use hydroxychloroquine. It was Venezuela which acted; sending the desperately needed oxygen to the state of Amazonas.
Bolsonaro’s government, with the eighth largest economy in the world, has shown shameless contempt for the people. It previously forced all the Cuban medical teams to leave Brazil in a cloud of Trumpian abuse. Brazil has a GDP per capita greater than China (4,600 deaths and 90,000 cases) or Cuba (380 deaths and 64,000 cases), where Covid-19 has been successfully controlled. The differences are extraordinary. It is the difference between ethical responsibility and hatred and contempt for the masses.
Health ministry in chaos
In 2020, as the virus arrived, several local governors began lockdown measures to contain the virus. Bolsonaro repudiated such initiatives, saying that ‘lockdown is a path to failure’ and joined demonstrations against social isolation measures and in favour of a new military dictatorship. He called the virus a ‘little flu’, and expressions of serious concern ‘hysteria’. On 12 March 2020, the day after the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic, the Ministry of Health recommended the cancellation of mass events and local governments began directing people to stay home. Bolsonaro then started campaigning actively against any measures interrupting production and the accumulation of capital.
As cases increased, health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta began to support measures to contain the virus. With 30,000 deaths, Bolsonaro dismissed Mandetta and replaced him with Nelson Teich. On 16 April – Teich’s first day in office – Bolsonaro called for the reopening of all commerce, despite packed hospitals in several states and Covid-19 deaths increasing. Teich objected to Bolsonaro’s promotion of hydoxychloroquine. After four weeks, Teich resigned, leaving Pazuello as the new minister to expand the supply of the drug. Pazuello refused interviews, leaving the country uninformed, whilst changing the criteria for counting cases and deleting previous information.
Pazuello angered Bolsonaro by intending to buy 46m doses of the Coronavac vaccine, developed by Butantan of Sao Paulo and China’s Sinovac. The ministry already had an agreement with AstraZeneca. Bolsonaro blocked Pazuello’s order. Pazuello resigned on 15 March 2021. Then Minister number four, Marcelo Queiroga, was appointed. Covid deaths have risen every single day in March 2021.
Ignoring the President, more local governors began imposing lockdowns in their states. Bolsonaro went on the attack stating that a governor who shut down a state would have to pay for emergency aid, and he continued to refuse to decree a national lockdown.
Lula let off the leash
On 8 March 2021, Supreme Court Justice Edson Fachin – condemning the politicised trial of Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva – declared that a Curitiba court had lacked authority to try Lula on corruption charges and that he must be retried in federal courts in the capital Brasilia. Lula’s convictions were overturned, and his political rights restored. Brazil’s Prosecutor General will appeal the decision. Brazil’s real sank around 1.5% after the news and the Bovespa stock index fell 4%.
The move reflects the dissension within the ruling class, a section of which has now decided, by temporarily releasing Lula, to put the heat on Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro’s popularity in opinion polls has tumbled as that of Lula has risen; Bolsonaro is rattled. In a social media broadcast Bolsonaro said that he was never against vaccines – a lie; he even wore a mask. This followed a press conference on 10 March, where Lula and almost everyone present wore masks.Lula said, ‘This country is in a state of utter tumult and confusion because there’s no government. I’ll repeat that: this-country-has-no-government.’ The problem is that there is a state, one of private interests: with a government, of profit, by profit and for profit. These are the fundamental challenges.
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 281 April/May 2021
