As the 5th most populous nation on earth, with several megacities, I’m surprised it took this long. That neighboring Paraguay sealed their borders may have slowed it down a bit.
Are there any Brazilian Dopers who wish to comment further?
Their leader is basically a South American version of Trump, too. Their fate is sealed.
Their biggest problem is their far-right President Jair Bolosonero, who has repeatedly minimized the threat and spoken against the quarantines and lockdowns imposed by state governors and mayors. I’m afraid things are going to get much much worse there.
And now we’re going to send them 2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine, even though our own studies have shown that it is harmful?
Well, clearly *we *don’t need it anymore.
The people who take it for autoimmune disorders, and have had difficulty getting it, might disagree.
My guess is that some element in the US government just won’t accept the hydroxychloroquine study results to date and desperately want someone to continue studies in the hope that they get results that can be spun into some version of, “See, I was right.” Bolosonero might just force a positive report to curry favor with interested parties in the US government.
If nothing else, I would guess that any hydroxychloroquine sent to Brazil can be used as an actual anti-malarial…
Made me think of polio vaccines being tested in Africa back in the day.
An NYT writer who lives there says Brazil is “in coronavirus free fall”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/opinion/brazil-coronavirus-bolsonaro.html
FWIW, a judge has ordered Bolsonaro to start releasing official COVID data.
Let’s see how well that works.
My friend is worried that it will be so bad that she can’t go home to Brazil for Christmas. She has never been a fan of Bolosonero and even lost some friends as she found out they are actually idiots.
Unfortunately Brazil has only just got started - second highest rate of recorded cases, and we can be reasonably sure that these figures are grossly undercounted because of the sheer logistical issues in such a huge nation with poor communications and infrastructure in many parts.
In a few weeks it will be over 2000 officially recorded deaths per day, again this will be a huge undercount.
We also know from everywhere else that the decline in infections and deaths takes three to four times longer to reach a similar point on the curve as it did to attain and given it has taken just over ten weeks to reach the current levels and will keep going for at least another six weeks it is reasonable to assume that Brazil is going to be in crisis for more than six months.
The only crumb of comfort is that maybe a couple of Brazilian States might be able to gain control of their situation before then.
Brazil’s numbers surged up beginning about May 23. Was there some specific event or policy change near May 9 that might have been the cause?
I don’t see any surge, either in daily cases or deaths, in the seven-day running average. There was a rapid increase in daily cases after May 25, but then a fall after May 30, followed by another steep rise. These even out if you do a running average. I would attribute the variance to vagaries of reporting.
:smack: My brain needs a major overhaul. :mad: It was Sweden I was looking at, but (because I had a different question about Brazil), ‘Sweden’ transmuted into ‘Brazil’ while I was changing Firefox tabs.
Mods, Please delete my stupid post.
(At this point maybe my best hope is that I’m using an invalid email and my account here won’t survive the impending switch! :o )
No worries. The words do sound very similar. In Esperanto. 
Bolsonaro makes Trump look positively proactive and caring by comparison.
Bolsonaro makes Trump look like Mr. Rogers. Rodrigo Duterte makes Bolsonaro look like Mr. Rogers.
Are there any other current leaders of countries who are on a fourth tier of scariness? Other than Kim Jong-Un?