Brazil’s losing battle against covid-19

""In poorer regions of Brazil the health system is buckling. Less than a month after the first covid case was reported on March 13th in Manaus, a city of 2m in the Amazon rainforest, the mayor said that its system had collapsed. A promised field hospital has failed to materialise and mass graves are being dug for victims, some of whom are dying on boats en route to the city.

The weaker the health system, the more it needs the protection of strict lockdowns. But Mr Bolsonaro has made these a wedge issue. He shows up at weekly protests in Brasília, the capital, against quarantines. Unlike in some European countries, Brazilians do not come to their front doors and windows to applaud health workers. Their covid clamour signals conflict. When Mr Bolsonaro says something incendiary, his fans drive around blasting car horns in approval while his critics bang pots and pans. In municipalities where support for Mr Bolsonaro is strong, adherence to social distancing is correspondingly weak, according to a recent paper by Nicolas Ajzenman, an economist, and two other authors.""

read the newstory pubished in the Economist