6 ms·

Brazilian living in Brazil here. This news is not surprising at all. I'm going to avoid adjectives so that my comment doesn't get downvoted into oblivion by g

by lbrito 6y ago

Brazilian living in Brazil here. This news is not surprising at all. I'm going to avoid adjectives so that my comment doesn't get downvoted into oblivion by government fanboys, but let's just say that it is safe to assume that the Brazilian federal government does not believe science should be the main weapon in the fight against Covid. Brazil is one of the few countries that denies the pandemic[1]. The others are Turkmenistan, Belarus and Nicaragua. Fun fact: neither of those are really democracies (whether Brazil still is a democracy, it is increasingly debatable). The Brazilian president has scoffed covid as "a little flu"[2]. He is also against social distancing/lockdown measures, claiming they don't work[3]. Needless to say, he doesn't provide any scientific evidence of that -- he knows full well his supporters need nothing more than his word to believe in anything. State governors are basically on their own since the beginning of the pandemic -- a lot of states implemented lockdowns/social distancing, but with limited effect since Bolsonaro routinely goes on national TV to downplay those measures and basically call them a hoax. The situation now is that people are fed up with the long, ineffective (because they were always superficial, half-baked) social distancing and lockdowns, and the state governments are beginning to reopen right when the death toll is accelerating. So basically we're screwed. Deaths will accelerate like crazy now that a lot of places are reopening and the federal government will do anything it can to hold onto its alternate reality where everything is fine. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/974dc9d2-77c1-4381-adcd-2f755333a36b https://www.ft.com/content/974dc9d2-77c1-4381-adcd-2f755333a... [2] https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/a-little-flu-brazil-s-bolsonaro-playing-down-coronavirus-crisis https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/06/a-little-flu-brazil-s-bo... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/04/while-brazils-president-fights-social-distancing-its-public-health-system-is-fighting-pandemic/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/04/while-bra...

kaybe 6y ago
> Needless to say, he doesn't provide any scientific evidence of that -- he knows full well his supporters need nothing more than his word to believe in anything. I want to live in a world where this is actually viable everywhere, where we can trust our leaders to confer with experts and change their opinion if the situation changes. (Living in Germany, I do trust Angela Merkel that much, for example. I want that for everyone.)
- caiobegotti 6y ago
  The other day I read an article (sorry, I lost the link to it) comparing the response to the coronavirus between nations led by men and women and it was not very surprising to me that countries whose president or prime minister was a woman had a better first response and fewer deaths compared to neighbour states. I would love to read a "postmortem" about that when this is all over.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  It’s pretty amazing how short the list of countries like that actually is.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > I want to live in a world where this is actually viable everywhere, where we can trust our leaders to confer with experts and change their opinion if the situation changes. I want to live in a world where everyone knows to verify things for themselves. Yes, I'd like leaders we can trust, but trust should never mean "don't check". (At the very least, have multiple other sources you trust to cross-check your sources of authority.)
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Trust is an essential element of society. Constant individual validation simply doesn't scale, trust is enormously efficient, and low-trust societies are poor and dysfunctional societies. That's not to say you can simply declare trust (though TOFU / TOFI tit-for-tat is remarkaby reliable), and the question of how to bootstrap trust is a difficult one. Ironically, many nationalist/populist behavioral patterns substitute a sense of tribal trust patterns for epistemic ones. Ideally, a set of values and institutions which provide robust cross-checking and validation, distributing the trust verification burden, emerge. Any systemic doctrine of power concentration, whether authoritarian government, monopolistic economies, exclusive religions, educational uniformatism, etc., tends to undermine this.
    - JoshTriplett 6y ago
      An ensemble model of trust is entirely reasonable: for things that don't require a mountain of evidence, you can mostly trust that the collection of sources you depend on will not all simultaneously gaslight you in a consistent way. But the comment I was replying to suggested that in an ideal world you could trust one source (political leaders). I'm suggesting I'd like a world where everyone consistently applies critical thinking to all sources of information.
ikeyany 6y ago
You more or less described the United States. I'm not sure if that should be comforting to you or disturbing to me.
plausible 6y ago
I couldn't have said it better myself. We're also severely under-tested. Given our fickle social distancing and isolation, I highly doubt we "only" have 600K infected people. Our flagship universities (USP, UERJ) have already estimated that the real number can be up to 16 times higher. The population is encouraged to reach out to the health service only when they have the most severe symptoms, since the public health service is at the edge of collapse in many states. The number of people dying at home, and dying from severe respiratory syndrome is abnormally high. It all adds up to an even grimier picture. About our governors and mayors, I personally think most of them are doing what they possibly can do. They're facing an immense pressure to roll back lock-down measures in order to "save the economy" partly because of the finance minister's catastrophic failure. Businesses had a hard time getting credit, and the people in need were left scrambling for that ridiculous $120/month benefit. We're living in a failed state.
Aeolun 6y ago
I don’t understand. How can the same people hurt by this virus go around claiming it’s a hoax?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- diegof79 6y ago
  There is people that claim that the earth is flat while driving with their GPS. I guess that it doesn’t give too much hope about common sense.
sizeofchar 6y ago
> I'm going to avoid adjectives so that my comment doesn't get downvoted into oblivion by government fanboys, but let's just say that it is safe to assume that the Brazilian federal government does not believe science should be the main weapon in the fight against Covid. You’d better had used adjectives than writing plain lies. Yes, Bolsonaro had a initial attitude to the pandemic, but it is past by 2 months at least. Also, the term “small flu” wasn’t coined because he didn’t believe it, he meant to slow the hysteric news that were broadcasting a death toll of 500k in the, then, coming 2 months. Two months past now, and here we are, less than a tenth on that and no health system collapse. > State governors are basically on their own since the beginning of the pandemic -- a lot of states implemented lockdowns/social distancing, but with limited effect since Bolsonaro routinely goes on national TV to downplay those measures and basically call them a hoax. Yet another lie. The government gave states a total of more than BRL 300 bi, and is giving a basic income to the poor people in excess of 150 bi. Many campaign hospitals were donated to critical regions, such as Manaus and Fortaleza. The organizing measures the federal government meant to apply were made short by the Supreme Court, that ruled mayors and states’ governors had the saying on local measures.

by lbrito 6y ago

kaybe 6y ago

> Needless to say, he doesn't provide any scientific evidence of that -- he knows full well his supporters need nothing more than his word to believe in anything. I want to live in a world where this is actually viable everywhere, where we can trust our leaders to confer with experts and change their opinion if the situation changes. (Living in Germany, I do trust Angela Merkel that much, for example. I want that for everyone.)

caiobegotti 6y ago
The other day I read an article (sorry, I lost the link to it) comparing the response to the coronavirus between nations led by men and women and it was not very surprising to me that countries whose president or prime minister was a woman had a better first response and fewer deaths compared to neighbour states. I would love to read a "postmortem" about that when this is all over.
Aeolun 6y ago
It’s pretty amazing how short the list of countries like that actually is.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
> I want to live in a world where this is actually viable everywhere, where we can trust our leaders to confer with experts and change their opinion if the situation changes. I want to live in a world where everyone knows to verify things for themselves. Yes, I'd like leaders we can trust, but trust should never mean "don't check". (At the very least, have multiple other sources you trust to cross-check your sources of authority.)
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Trust is an essential element of society. Constant individual validation simply doesn't scale, trust is enormously efficient, and low-trust societies are poor and dysfunctional societies. That's not to say you can simply declare trust (though TOFU / TOFI tit-for-tat is remarkaby reliable), and the question of how to bootstrap trust is a difficult one. Ironically, many nationalist/populist behavioral patterns substitute a sense of tribal trust patterns for epistemic ones. Ideally, a set of values and institutions which provide robust cross-checking and validation, distributing the trust verification burden, emerge. Any systemic doctrine of power concentration, whether authoritarian government, monopolistic economies, exclusive religions, educational uniformatism, etc., tends to undermine this.
  - JoshTriplett 6y ago
    An ensemble model of trust is entirely reasonable: for things that don't require a mountain of evidence, you can mostly trust that the collection of sources you depend on will not all simultaneously gaslight you in a consistent way. But the comment I was replying to suggested that in an ideal world you could trust one source (political leaders). I'm suggesting I'd like a world where everyone consistently applies critical thinking to all sources of information.

ikeyany 6y ago

You more or less described the United States. I'm not sure if that should be comforting to you or disturbing to me.

plausible 6y ago

I couldn't have said it better myself. We're also severely under-tested. Given our fickle social distancing and isolation, I highly doubt we "only" have 600K infected people. Our flagship universities (USP, UERJ) have already estimated that the real number can be up to 16 times higher. The population is encouraged to reach out to the health service only when they have the most severe symptoms, since the public health service is at the edge of collapse in many states. The number of people dying at home, and dying from severe respiratory syndrome is abnormally high. It all adds up to an even grimier picture. About our governors and mayors, I personally think most of them are doing what they possibly can do. They're facing an immense pressure to roll back lock-down measures in order to "save the economy" partly because of the finance minister's catastrophic failure. Businesses had a hard time getting credit, and the people in need were left scrambling for that ridiculous $120/month benefit. We're living in a failed state.

Aeolun 6y ago

I don’t understand. How can the same people hurt by this virus go around claiming it’s a hoax?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
diegof79 6y ago
There is people that claim that the earth is flat while driving with their GPS. I guess that it doesn’t give too much hope about common sense.

sizeofchar 6y ago

> I'm going to avoid adjectives so that my comment doesn't get downvoted into oblivion by government fanboys, but let's just say that it is safe to assume that the Brazilian federal government does not believe science should be the main weapon in the fight against Covid. You’d better had used adjectives than writing plain lies. Yes, Bolsonaro had a initial attitude to the pandemic, but it is past by 2 months at least. Also, the term “small flu” wasn’t coined because he didn’t believe it, he meant to slow the hysteric news that were broadcasting a death toll of 500k in the, then, coming 2 months. Two months past now, and here we are, less than a tenth on that and no health system collapse. > State governors are basically on their own since the beginning of the pandemic -- a lot of states implemented lockdowns/social distancing, but with limited effect since Bolsonaro routinely goes on national TV to downplay those measures and basically call them a hoax. Yet another lie. The government gave states a total of more than BRL 300 bi, and is giving a basic income to the poor people in excess of 150 bi. Many campaign hospitals were donated to critical regions, such as Manaus and Fortaleza. The organizing measures the federal government meant to apply were made short by the Supreme Court, that ruled mayors and states’ governors had the saying on local measures.