Rebeca Ibarra: You're listening to the Takeaway. I am Rebeca Ibarra. Last week, Brazil became just the second country in the world after the United States to pass 300,000 deaths from COVID-19. The country has also seen record high daily death totals in recent weeks and many of Brazil's hospitals are experiencing ICU shortages. At the same time, the country's vaccination rollout has been slow, around 6.5% of the Brazilian population has received one vaccination dose so far.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has frequently cast doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines and has not pursued vaccine purchases as aggressively as other world leaders, and the emergence this year of a COVID variant that has spread from Brazil to other parts of the world means that outbreaks within the country could also hamper efforts to contain COVID-19 globally. Here with us now is Ernesto Londoño, Brazil bureau chief for the New York Times. Welcome back to the show, Ernesto.
Ernesto Londoño: Hi, thanks for having me.
Rebeca Ibarra: We mentioned the high death totals Brazil has experienced in recent weeks. How does this moment compare to other points in the pandemic for Brazil?
Ernesto Londoño: This is definitely the worst crisis we've seen in over a year of the pandemic here in Brazil. There was a period of crisis last year when much of the world went into lockdown, but the hospitals for the most part were able to cope with the volume of patients that we were getting. What we've seen in recent weeks though is very different. We're seeing a systemic breakdown of the healthcare system across the country, several states where ICU units are at capacity or overflowing.
What this means practically speaking is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who need critical care, who just simply aren't getting it. That means people are dying because they can't get the kind of care they need in hospitals.
Rebeca Ibarra: How much are COVID variants contributing to this current outbreak?
Ernesto Londoño: I think there's a growing consensus that this latest surge has been powered by the variants in Brazil. Primarily the P1 variant, which scientists believe is far more contagious than the virus we experienced last year. They're saying that on the one hand, more people are getting exposed to the virus because these new variants are simply easier to catch.
Another thing they're seeing, which is new, is more young people becoming gravely ill and what this means when they reach the hospitals, is that because they are younger and their bodies are more resilient, they spend more time in the hospital, which means that the turnover of beds becomes slower. I think that's part of the reason that the hospital system is struggling to cope with the caseload right now.
Rebeca Ibarra: Ernesto, in the US, communities of color have been hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19. How have Brazil's Black and Indigenous communities been impacted by the virus?
Ernesto Londoño: The research I've seen so far also suggests that Black Brazilians have borne a disproportionate brunt of this virus by virtue of the kind of jobs many of them have, the fact that many of them work in service industries or many of them don't have the luxury to work at home. Don't have jobs that allow them to just stay at home and work from home, means that they are increasingly exposed, that they are more reliant on public transportation, that they have public-facing jobs in the service industry, so many of them are becoming sick.
I have not seen comprehensive statistics that give us a very clear breakdown, but the data I've seen does suggest that they are disproportionately exposed. Indigenous communities were among the priority groups in Brazil's vaccine rollout, but unfortunately, we've seen that many have been reluctant to take the vaccine.
Many are reluctant to sort of believe and accept medical interventions from people who come from the outside because there's a long history of distrust. While a decent share of the Indigenous population living in remote communities have been inoculated already. There have been significant problems in rolling out these vaccines to these remote areas quickly and getting the target population to sort of believe that these vaccines are effective and necessary.
Rebeca Ibarra: How has President Jair Bolsonaro responded to this current wave of cases and deaths?
Ernesto Londoño: I think there's been a little bit of a shift in his posture. This is a world leader who was extremely cavalier for the past year, who questioned science, who questioned the severity of this disease, and who sabotaged efforts in post-lockdowns to promote mask wearing, to promote social distancing. Even when it came to vaccines, he sort of fueled these ideas that these vaccines were not to be trusted right away.
He even joked at one point that people who took the vaccine might turn into alligators and that the pharmaceutical companies would not be held responsible. I think as the death toll has climbed and as mayors and governors around the country are crying for help and pleading for international aid, I think it's dawned on him that he has a very big problem on his hands. Yesterday, he sacked six of his ministers, so there's been a cabinet reshuffle. In recent days, he let go of his health minister who was widely viewed as ineffective.
The president has started promoting the use of vaccines and saying that the government is working very hard to make up for lost time and to procure more vaccine supplies but it's been a very slow process and the rollout has been very slow, and the main reason for that is that the Brazilian government just did not act with a sense of urgency while many other countries were getting in line and locking in access to the first waves of vaccine supplies.
Rebeca Ibarra: Former President Trump had a friendly relationship with Bolsonaro. What has communications looked like between the Biden administration and Bolsonaro's government so far?
Ernesto Londoño: So far, I think they look pretty frosty. It's unclear what might be happening behind the scenes. The Brazilian government has said that it's interested in getting any surplus vaccines the US may have available, but we haven't really seen efforts at the highest level to reset this relationship and to see if there are areas of mutual cooperation, not just on healthcare but in other areas like the environment.
Rebeca Ibarra: Ernesto Londoño is a Brazil bureau chief for the New York Times. Ernesto, thank you so much for talking with us.
Ernesto Londoño: Thanks for having me.
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