Brazil’s Public Health Crossroad
This week, the Latin America team focused on the public health crisis in Brazil. When discussing Latin America’s emerging economies, it is no coincidence that Brazil has been a recurring topic throughout our previous weeks, including the informal labor market and foreign intervention as Brazil tries to balance ties with China and the United States. Despite these long-term goals that Brazil focuses on, the more immediate threat to Brazil has been the novel COVID-19, which has seen more than 5 million confirmed cases in Brazil.
When looking at Brazil’s response to COVID-19, it has been downplayed significantly by the Bolsonaro administration as it adopts a divisive stance of downplaying COVID-19 as a flu. Within his own administration, the ministry of health and Bolsonaro have fervently clashed over the core direction of the government’s response to the pandemic. In the span of two health ministers being fired, Bolsonaro has largely ignored social distancing guidelines and severely hampered federal efforts to contain the virus, leading to most efforts to become regional in nature. In fact, public opinion of Bolsonaro has declined while the ministry of health saw gains. While Bolsonaro was widely popular for his populist message that resounded with the working class that predominantly existed in favelas or a Brazilian slum, he incorrectly speculated that those of the lower class would be more content with less regulation.
The Bolsonaro administration’s response has been muddled by corruption and packed with fake news that sought to suppress the real crisis at hand. Several instances were cited in which federal aid went missing or was purposed incorrectly. In one such case, 151 million dollars were awarded to the nonprofit IABAS to build 7 hospitals by April, yet only 2 were built as of September with no insight into the whereabouts of the remaining funds. Similarly, out of 1000 ventilators contracted out to Arc Fontoura, only 52 were ultimately delivered. The government has shown in several instances to misappropriate vital funds that has led regional governments to struggle with a surmounting number of COVID-19 cases while battling the conflicting messages of the Bolsonaro administration and capital. No federal oversight into these processes has led to corruption where money has been sent without much success.
By failing to support Brazilians adequately, several key groups were affected in Brazil. Within Brazil’s rural areas, indigenous people have been significantly impacted by the absence of proper equipment and measures that have caused healthcare workers to actually spread COVID-19 to different villages. The Brazilian Supreme Court has warned the Bolsonaro administration that it can be held responsible for a “genocide” over their handling of the pandemic in indigenous communities. The majority of Brazilians that live in favelas have seen 30 times higher COVID-19 rates, decreased funding in healthcare, and ultimately 2.7 million people lost access to healthcare. Further segmenting the working class, lower-class black people have seen death rates of 55% in intensive care units for coronavirus versus 38% for white patients. This brings up the point of how Brazil has the necessary infrastructure for a healthcare system that rivals developed countries. Pre-2014, Brazil saw infant mortality drop from 53% to 14% and old people’s life expectancy skyrocket up 12 years. However, rich people have access to a privatized healthcare system that is unparalleled by the public system that has been unable to serve all Brazilian citizens. If Brazil increases healthcare spending by 4% by 2060, Brazil will be able to extend healthcare access to everyone.
In our discussion, we engaged the organization in multiple “hot takes” that offered several dilemmas that Brazil faces currently. In the first take, we were able to garner insights about the necessity of favelas. While the case rate is high (25%) and the fatality rate is low (1.8%), the consensus of the team was that the urban nature of some favelas has necessitated the social inequalities that pervade society. If favelas are located in rural areas, there’s no need for them to be densely packed. Another insight was that the data was misleading due to the inability of many lower-class citizens to access hospitals.
The second hot take delved into the nature of strongman tactics in helping guide a country. Members concluded that history has shown that a strongman can cause damage or reap benefits as leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt exercised unprecedented power during the Great Depression. However, the Latin America’s shift away from democracy to authoritarianism may have given rise to a strongman like Bolsonaro.
The third hot take was that the government should divert funds away from health. The team decisively defended the funding of a universal healthcare system despite the corruption in policies. If all healthcare was privatized, it would’ve been more ineffective in the beginning because of lack of infrastructure.
