RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil’s coronavirus disease 2019 death toll, which surpassed 250,000 on Thursday, is the world’s second-highest for the same reason its second wave has yet to fade: Prevention was never made a priority, experts said.
Since the pandemic’s start, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro scoffed at the “little flu” and lambasted local leaders for imposing restrictions on activity. He said the economy must keep humming along to prevent worse hardship.
Even when he approved pandemic welfare payments for the poor, they weren’t announced as a means to keep people home. Brazilians remain out and about as vaccination has started up — but rollout has proven far slower than was anticipated.
“Brazil simply didn’t have a response plan. We’ve been through this for the last year and still we don’t have a clear plan, a national plan,” Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s Institute for Health Policy Studies told the Associated Press. “There’s no plan, at all. And the same applies to vaccination.”(AP)
