A pandemic atlas: Brazil's leader scoffs, and toll rises

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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro puts on a mask due to the COVID-19 pandemic during the inauguration of the new General Abreu civic-military school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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Cemetery workers in protective clothing inter three victims of the new coronavirus at the Vila Formosa cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Wednesday, July 15, 2020. President Jair Bolsonaro condemned any coronavirus quarantine, saying shutdowns would wreck the economy and punish the poor. He scoffed at the “little flu,” then trumpeted the fatalistic claim that nothing could stop 70% of Brazilians from falling ill. And he refused to take responsibility, when many did. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

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Funeral workers in protective gear prepare the grave of a woman who is suspected to have died of COVID-19 disease, at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, on Thursday, April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

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The iconic Christ the Redeemer statue is lit up as if wearing a protective mask and with a slogan that reads in Portuguese: “Mask saves,” amid the new coronavirus pandemic, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Sunday, May 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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Residents of the Paraisopolis slum attend a ceremony on a soccer field after getting basic training from health workers on how to stay safe in their community during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Wednesday, May 6, 2020. With over 100,000 residents, Paraisopolis is one of the areas of Sao Paulo most affected by the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

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An SOS Funeral worker wearing protective equipment amid the new coronavirus pandemic prepares to remove the body of Eldon Cascais in Manaus, Brazil, Saturday, May 9, 2020. According to relatives, Cascais had lung cancer and died at home after suffering from shortness of breath, cough and fatigue for a week. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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SOS Funeral workers use a boat to transport a coffin carrying the body of an 86-year-old woman who lived by the Negro River and is a suspected to have died of COVID-19, near Manaus, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. The virus has spread upriver from Manaus, creeping into remote riverside towns and territories to infect indigenous tribes. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

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President Jair Bolsonaro wears a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of a ceremony where the national flag is projected in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

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An activist digs symbolic graves on Copacabana beach, in front of a soccer goalpost, during a protest organized by the NGO Rio de Paz against the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, June 11, 2020. A Brazilian Supreme Court justice ordered the government of President Jair Bolsonaro to resume publication of full COVID-19 data, including the cumulative death toll, following allegations the government was trying to hide the severity of the pandemic in Latin America’s biggest country. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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Members of the “Tempero de Criola” band perform amid the new coronavirus pandemic at the Turano favela, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, June 19, 2020. A group of musicians playing Samba offered a small concert to the residents of Turano favela, most of whom remain quarantined to curb the spread of COVID-19. Residents could watch the performance from their windows, balconies or via Internet. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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Elderly women dance as an armed forces band plays at the Complex Stella Maris shelter for the elderly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. Soldiers disinfected the shelter in an attempt to control the spread of the new coronavirus among the elderly who are part of the group considered more vulnerable or at risk of being infected. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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A patient, who died from the new coronavirus, lies on a table between other COVID-19 patients in a room at the Salgado Filho Municipal Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, early Sunday, May 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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Mourners embrace during the funeral of Chief Messias Martins Moreira, 53, of the Kokama ethnic group, who died of COVID-19, at the Parque das Tribos settlement in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Thursday, May 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

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With rosary beads wrapped around clasped hands, a man bows in prayer during a Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, July 4, 2020. Following an easing of restrictions related to COVID-19, the Catholic church in Rio celebrated its first Mass with 30% of its worshippers, while observing preventive measures to avoid spreading the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

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Tenetehara Indigenous children play around a campfire during a festival in the Alto Rio Guama Indigenous Reserve, where they have enforced six months of isolation during the new coronavirus pandemic, near the city of Paragominas, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. The group, also known as Tembe, celebrated and gave thanks that none of their members have fallen ill with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

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Medical workers celebrate as the last three patients are released from a field hospital at the National Stadium Mane Garrincha, after recuperating from COVID-19, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

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A family watches a movie from the back of their car at a drive-in movie theater where drivers must leave one space empty between them amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Brasilia, Brazil, Saturday, May 23, 2020. The drive-in is 47 years old and one of the only such open-air facilities in operation in Brazil. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

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A woman speaks affectionately to a horse named “Tony” at the Maria Vieira Bazani nursing home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020. The NGO Golias brought several animals, who they rescued from abandonment, to provide relief from the isolation many elderly people feel, cut off from friends and family due to fear of contagion from the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

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Volunteers spray disinfectant in an alley to help contain the spread of the new coronavirus, at the Santa Marta slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2020. Volunteers who have been sanitizing the narrow passages and homes in the shantytowns in Rio provided this service for the last time on Saturday. The volunteers led by Thiago Firmino said they have run out funds even as the number of COVID-19 infections are spiking again in the city. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)

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President Jair Bolsonaro embraces a supporter after voting during the run-off municipal elections in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Nov. 29, 2020. Bolsonaro, who sometimes has embraced the label “Trump of the Tropics,” said Sunday he’ll wait a little longer before recognizing the U.S. election victory of Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

By DAVID BILLER

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The story of COVID-19 in Brazil is the story of a president who insists the pandemic is no big deal.

Jair Bolsonaro condemned the idea of coronavirus quarantine, saying shutdowns would wreck the economy and punish the poor. He scoffed at the “little flu,” then trumpeted the fatalistic claim that nothing could stop 70% of Brazilians from falling ill. And he refused to take responsibility, when many did.

Asked in April about Brazil’s death toll surpassing China’s, he responded: “So what? I lament it. What do you want me to do?”

Those words crystallized how many came to view Brazil’s pandemic response. For Márcio Antônio Silva, a resident of Rio de Janeiro who’d recently lost his 25-year-old son, they were a gut punch.

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“I put him in the coffin, shut it and said, ‘My son, they will take care of you.’ And two days later I hear, ‘So what?’” Silva said. “It hurt so much. That’s maybe what hurts most today.”

Bolsonaro’s key actions were pragmatic and economic, albeit delayed and partially spurred by Congress. He enacted measures to prevent worse layoffs and doled out emergency coronavirus payments. Among the developing world’s most generous, they brought extreme poverty to its lowest level in decades and boosted his popularity.

Bolsonaro could have inspired people to hunker down, too, but instead he encouraged them to flout local restrictions — restrictions that he himself undermined by going out and drawing crowds. And he successfully lobbied for official soccer matches to resume, just as the pandemic peaked.

Denial was widespread in the Amazon city of Manaus, even as its cemetery was digging mass graves and patients were boarding puddle jumpers to go to hospitals. Contagion traveled upriver to Indigenous territories. In Sao Paulo’s towers and along Rio’s beaches, quarantine defiers echoed Bolsonaro’s dismissal of the disease.

At Copacabana, someone toppled crosses symbolizing the fallen. Silva, the grieving father, drove them back into the sand while pleading for respect.

The president fired one health minister for supporting measures hampering activity. A second quit because Bolsonaro promoted chloroquine — a drug closely related to the anti-malarial medication championed by U.S. President Donald Trump that Bolsonaro himself took when he contracted COVID-19. His third health minister was an army general with no pre-pandemic health experience.

The health ministry said in a statement that it has distributed tests for more than 10 million people. That’s not close to enough, said Pedro Hallal, an epidemiologist who coordinates the Federal University of Pelotas’ testing program, by far Brazil’s most comprehensive. He says Brazil’s government hasn’t valued testing and the nation probably had about 40 million infections -– five times the official tally.

Worse, there’s no contact tracing. Hallal said he knows that from experience: No one reached out to family members when his parents tested positive.

Brazil’s viral curve looks like few others: Rather than a crest, it shows a three-month plateau of roughly 1,000 daily deaths.

By mid-December, the country had reported 85.3 cases per 100,000 population.

Due to the government’s COVID-19 cash bonanza, the International Monetary Fund forecasts 5.8% contraction for Brazil — the best 2020 outlook of six major Latin American economies. And the rise of unemployment has been limited, up to about 15%.

But low new jobless claims obscure fewer people seeking work, said Andre Perfeito, chief economist at Necton Investimentos. That will change as the pandemic outlay winds down and the labor force swells, revealing “real” unemployment — already approaching 25%. Layoffs also are anticipated.

Infections have rebounded after local leaders eased restrictions and pandemic fatigue set in, and are nearing the level of the July peak. Hallal expects this surge will have more infections each day, though fewer deaths.

The president’s playbook is little changed. Bolsonaro maintains there’s no time for hand-wringing, and Brazil’s economy needs to start humming.

“We’re all going to die someday. Everybody here will die,” he said in early November, as he announced measures to restart tourism. “There’s no use avoiding reality. We have to stop being a country of sissies.”

A pandemic atlas: Brazil’s leader scoffs, and toll rises