Bolsonaro’s Pandemic Blackout Won’t Fool Anyone
But it will kill more Brazilians by obscuring vital health data.
It’s too late for a cover-up.
Photographer: Andressa Anholete/Getty Images South AmericaFrom Argentina’s lockdown to Nicaragua’s devil-may-care, governments across Latin American have experimented with a range of strategies before the raging coronavirus pandemic. Brazil has added something new to the policymaker’s black bag: blindfolds.
Clearly something had to be done. Last week, Brazil leapfrogged most of the world’s worst-hit nations and now trails only the U.S. in active cases, overtaking France and the United Kingdom to log the third highest death toll from Covid-19. Those numbers have made Latin America’s largest country an international scandal, drawn a U.S. travel ban from President Donald Trump and sent protesters to the streets.