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One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview

BACKGROUND: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) became the deadliest pandemic of the new millennium. One year after it became a pandemic, the current COVID-19 situation in Brazil is an example of how the impacts of a pandemic are beyond health outcomes and how health, social, and political actions a...

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Autores principales: Boschiero, Matheus Negri, Palamim, Camila Vantini Capasso, Ortega, Manoela Marques, Mauch, Renan Marrichi, Marson, Fernando Augusto Lima
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Ubiquity Press 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8139306/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34046307
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3182
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author Boschiero, Matheus Negri
Palamim, Camila Vantini Capasso
Ortega, Manoela Marques
Mauch, Renan Marrichi
Marson, Fernando Augusto Lima
author_facet Boschiero, Matheus Negri
Palamim, Camila Vantini Capasso
Ortega, Manoela Marques
Mauch, Renan Marrichi
Marson, Fernando Augusto Lima
author_sort Boschiero, Matheus Negri
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) became the deadliest pandemic of the new millennium. One year after it became a pandemic, the current COVID-19 situation in Brazil is an example of how the impacts of a pandemic are beyond health outcomes and how health, social, and political actions are intertwined. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to provide an overview of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, from a social and political point of view, and to discuss the perspectives from now on. METHODS: This is a narrative review using official, scientific (PubMed, Medline, and SciELO databases) and publicly available data. Press articles were also used that contain important information not found in these databases. FINDINGS: We address the impacts of COVID-19 in different regions of Brazil, on indigenous populations, health care workers, and how internal social contrasts impacted the pandemics advance across the country. We also discuss key points that culminated in the countrys failed management of the COVID-19 spread, such as poor management of the public health care system, disparities between public and private health care infrastructure, lack of mass testing and viral spread tracking, lack of preparedness and planning to implement strict isolation and social distancing measures, and, most importantly, political instability, a deteriorating Health Ministry and sabotaging attitudes of the countrys president, including anti-scientific actions, underplaying COVID-19 severity, spreading and powering fake news about the pandemic, promoting knowingly inefficient medications for COVID-19 treatment, and interference in collective health policies, including the countrys vaccination plan. CONCLUSIONS: After one year of COVID-19 and a disastrous management of the disease, Brazil has more than 11 million cases, 270,000 deaths, and the highest number of daily deaths due to COVID-19 in the world, most of which could have been avoided and can be credited to negligence of municipal, state, and federal authorities, especially President Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Unfortunately, the country is an example of what not to do in a pandemic setting. KEY POINTS: One year after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Brazil had the second higher number of cases and deaths, and the highest number of daily deaths due to the disease. Lack of massive testing, non-stringent and ineffective collective health policies, poor management of the public health care system, and political instability were the main drivers of the countrys flawed management of the COVID-19 advancement. Anti-science and sabotaging actions by government had a pivotal role in the countrys current situation. Brazil has a large territory and is marked by social contrasts among different regions and states, which showed contrasting data regarding the impact caused by COVID-19. COVID-19 databases and data sharing are important to provide an overview of epidemiological aspects of the disease; however, Brazil lacks standardization in these datasets.
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spelling pubmed-81393062021-05-26 One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview Boschiero, Matheus Negri Palamim, Camila Vantini Capasso Ortega, Manoela Marques Mauch, Renan Marrichi Marson, Fernando Augusto Lima Ann Glob Health Review BACKGROUND: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) became the deadliest pandemic of the new millennium. One year after it became a pandemic, the current COVID-19 situation in Brazil is an example of how the impacts of a pandemic are beyond health outcomes and how health, social, and political actions are intertwined. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to provide an overview of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, from a social and political point of view, and to discuss the perspectives from now on. METHODS: This is a narrative review using official, scientific (PubMed, Medline, and SciELO databases) and publicly available data. Press articles were also used that contain important information not found in these databases. FINDINGS: We address the impacts of COVID-19 in different regions of Brazil, on indigenous populations, health care workers, and how internal social contrasts impacted the pandemics advance across the country. We also discuss key points that culminated in the countrys failed management of the COVID-19 spread, such as poor management of the public health care system, disparities between public and private health care infrastructure, lack of mass testing and viral spread tracking, lack of preparedness and planning to implement strict isolation and social distancing measures, and, most importantly, political instability, a deteriorating Health Ministry and sabotaging attitudes of the countrys president, including anti-scientific actions, underplaying COVID-19 severity, spreading and powering fake news about the pandemic, promoting knowingly inefficient medications for COVID-19 treatment, and interference in collective health policies, including the countrys vaccination plan. CONCLUSIONS: After one year of COVID-19 and a disastrous management of the disease, Brazil has more than 11 million cases, 270,000 deaths, and the highest number of daily deaths due to COVID-19 in the world, most of which could have been avoided and can be credited to negligence of municipal, state, and federal authorities, especially President Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Unfortunately, the country is an example of what not to do in a pandemic setting. KEY POINTS: One year after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Brazil had the second higher number of cases and deaths, and the highest number of daily deaths due to the disease. Lack of massive testing, non-stringent and ineffective collective health policies, poor management of the public health care system, and political instability were the main drivers of the countrys flawed management of the COVID-19 advancement. Anti-science and sabotaging actions by government had a pivotal role in the countrys current situation. Brazil has a large territory and is marked by social contrasts among different regions and states, which showed contrasting data regarding the impact caused by COVID-19. COVID-19 databases and data sharing are important to provide an overview of epidemiological aspects of the disease; however, Brazil lacks standardization in these datasets. Ubiquity Press 2021-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC8139306/ /pubmed/34046307 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3182 Text en Copyright: 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Review
Boschiero, Matheus Negri
Palamim, Camila Vantini Capasso
Ortega, Manoela Marques
Mauch, Renan Marrichi
Marson, Fernando Augusto Lima
One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title_full One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title_fullStr One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title_full_unstemmed One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title_short One Year of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Brazil: A Political and Social Overview
title_sort one year of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) in brazil: a political and social overview
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8139306/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34046307
http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3182
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