Brazil — Latin America’s largest country — is experiencing a deepening crisis with the coronavirus pandemic. As part of The World's regular series of conversations about the pandemic, reporter Elana Gordon moderated a discussion with Marcia Castro, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
A race-changing scandal raises suspicion about the motivations of 4,580 newly elected city council members and mayors who only recently began to identify as Black.
Last week, there were more than a thousand deaths three days in a row in Brazil. The death rate is expected to hit 200,000 this week, second only to the United States.
Brazilians voted in local elections in more than 5,500 municipalities across the country on Sunday. It was another big loss for President Jair Bolsonaro, coming on the heels of the electoral defeat of his top ally, US President Donald Trump.
The coronavirus pandemic was relatively slow to reach Latin America, but Brazil, the region’s largest country, has been hit hardest so far: As of Tuesday, it had 23,430 confirmed cases, and 1,328 deaths. Still, the president has continued to downplay the virus’s impact.
The virus is spreading quickly across Brazil. As of Monday, there were 11,721 people infected with COVID-19 and 516 deaths in the country, according to state health department information.
President Jair Bolsonaro has remained defiant even after US President Donald Trump, who has been his political role model, walked back his own skepticism about the coronavirus outbreak. Bolsonaro’s stance has isolated him politically in Brazil.
A hotel on Spain’s resort island of Tenerife was put on lockdown after a visiting doctor from Italy tested positive for the novel coronavirus. And, longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, ousted during the 2011 Arab Spring protests, died today at age 91. Also, happy Fat Tuesday (or Pączki Day for some)! We head to a “dream factory” in Rio as the city celebrates Carnival.
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