The U.S. Sent Brazil A Different Plague

After the Revolutionary War thousands of traitors and their families and slaves-- so-called loyalists-- fled to Canada, the Caribbean and Britain. Eventually some snuck back into the country. Decades later, some helped foment the American Civil War. After the reactionaries lost that one, a great many fled the U.S.-- mostly without their slaves, who were now freemen-- for Brazil. Yesterday, the Washington Post's correspondent in Rio de Janeiro, Terrence McCoy, took a look at the descendants-- who reminded me of Joe Kennedy III's fraternity.

Brazil is led by a proto-fascist, Jair Bolsonaro who is very much like Trump. He has been as terrible on confronting the pandemic as Trump has and, in fact, Brazil has the second largest case-load in the world after the U.S.-- 2,484,649 confirmed cases (11,683 vases per million Brazilians). Yesterday Brazil added another 41,169 cases. Like the U.S., the pandemic is raging out of control due exclusively to bad political leadership. Unlike the U.S., though, a group of unions representing Brazil's health workers are urging the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Bolsonaro for crimes against humanity over his handling of the pandemic. There have been 88,634 COVID-deaths, again, secondly to the U.S.'s (152,320).

McCoy's report on Brazil, though, isn't about COVID. It's about another plague that multi-racial Brazil has had to deal with: the Confederates and their racist descendants. He explained that "It’s one of history’s lesser-known episodes. After the Civil War, thousands of defeated Southerners came to Brazil to self-exile in a country that still practiced slavery. For decades, their descendants have thrown a massive party that now attracts thousands of people to the twin cities of Americana and Santa Bárbara d’Oeste to celebrate all things Dixie. The Confederate flag? Everywhere. On flagpoles and knickknacks. Emblazoned on the dance floor. Clutched by men clad in Confederate battle gray. Decorating the grounds of the cemetery that holds the remains of veterans of the rebel army-- the immigrants known here as the confederados. In a country that has long been more preoccupied with class divisions than racism, the Confederate symbols, stripped of their American context, never registered much notice. But now, as the racial reckoning in the United States following the killing of George Floyd inspires a similar reexamination of values in Brazil, that has begun to change."

Brazilians in recent weeks have demanded the removal of the notorious statue in São Paulo of a 17th-century settler who enslaved indigenous people. Protests for black equality have rumbled through several cities. And in Americana and Santa Bárbara d’Oeste, the cities founded by the Confederates, Brazilians who have never been to the United States are increasingly asking questions piercingly familiar to Americans: Where should the Confederacy be remembered-- on a flagpole, or in a museum?

...The debate has simmered for years. On one side is the Fraternity of American Descendants, the group that throws the annual party, tends to the Confederate cemetery grounds and promotes a Lost Cause orthodoxy reminiscent of the most ardent Confederacy apologists. On the other is the Black Union for Equality (UNEGRO), which has been leading a community charge to strip the festival of the flag considered by many to be a symbol of hate and repression.

In what might be the farthest outpost of the American culture wars, a new battle over the Confederate flag is only just beginning.

A mass exodus in search of land and slaves

The newspapers called it “Brazilian fever.” With the war lost, thousands of Southerners, fearful of living under Northern rule among freed slaves, were seeking other opportunities. Some pushed for Mexico. Others for Venezuela. But Brazil, which wouldn’t abolish slavery for another 23 years, proved to be the most attractive of countries.

Emperor Dom Pedro II, a fierce advocate of the South during the war, tried to induce their immigration, offering free transport, cheap land and an easy path to citizenship. Before long, Southerners sailed out from New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, for Rio de Janeiro. Eventually, between 8,000 and 20,000 immigrated.

“Move here and buy land,” Col. Charles Gunter urged in a letter to the Charleston Mercury newspaper in 1868. “We have here a beautiful place for our village, in the center of rich land, and on a grand river.”

But historians say one of the central draws was a country where Southerners could freeze time and continue a lifestyle that had been put to a violent end in the United States. In journals, one bragged about how inexpensive Brazilian slaves were; another lamented that they couldn’t bring recently freed American slaves to Brazil.

“They came to continue having slaves,” said Luciana Brito, a historian at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia. “They associated the existence of slavery in Brazil with the maintenance of a system of racial subservience.”

Brito and other historians have scoured letters, journal entries and deeds of sale. One researcher found that more than three-fourths of Southerners who wrote to the Brazilian government to inquire about immigration were slaveholders. At least 54 families bought at least 536 slaves upon entering Brazil. Using racial epithets, they expressed fears of an “African government” in Brazil, and black “rulers” in the United States.

“The confederados presented themselves as refugees of a devastated America,” said Jordan Brasher, a geographer at Columbus State University who wrote his dissertation on the confederado communities. “As the downtrodden, poor, defeated Confederate soldiers looking to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

“They also brought the ideology of white supremacy and racial terrorism from the United States South to Brazil.”

In one dark episode, two Confederate immigrants led a mob in the lynching of a police chief who had refused to track down escaped slaves-- in front of his family. The confederados were also suspected of assassinating a Brazilian senator who supported emancipation.

In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, nearly a quarter-century after the United States. But interracial relations in the two countries were different. There were neither draconian racial distinctions in Brazil nor government prohibitions on intermarrying between races. The races mixed, yielding a country of extraordinary diversity. Over time, some confederados adopted new opinions on race.

“One of the changes most evidenced in the Confederados of my youth... was their belief in tolerance among the races,” Eugene C. Harter, who was raised among the confederados, wrote in a book about the community. “This they had acquired from the Brazilians.”

The confederados and their descendants assimilated and intermarried. English was largely forgotten. The towns become indistinguishable from their neighbors.

One of the few elements to remain was the yearly Confederate party, with its pageantry, its music and its flag.

‘I didn’t want to be black’

Cláudia Monteiro, president of the local Black Union for Equality, rarely paid much attention to the party. She’d spent 40 of her 48 years in Santa Bárbara d’Oeste and, to her, it was nothing more than a town quirk. Living in Brazil, other racial issues had always seemed more pressing, including those in her own life.

Like many Brazilians, she grew up identifying as morena, one of the many distinctions in the country’s racial taxonomy, rather than the darker negra. Negra, she was led to believe by mass media, and even in her family, was “always ugly. Their hair was ugly. Their form was ugly. I didn’t want to be black.”

Not until she saw the work of the photographer Sebastião Salgado did she reassess that belief. In his images, she said, she recognized so much beauty and dignity in the faces of Africa and Brazil that she committed herself to black history and activism.

In the summer of 2015, she and another activist got to talking about Dylann Roof. The killer of nine black churchgoers in Charleston had glorified the Confederate flag, and it was taken down from the South Carolina statehouse. But in Brazil, officials weren’t asking for its removal from the Confederate extravaganza. They were actively supporting it, and had put the party on the official São Paulo events calendar.

With the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, their frustration only grew. “We started to mobilize,” said Carlinhos Barros, the other activist.

But the man whom they asked to remove the flag had a very different interpretation of it-- an interpretation they learned in detail at a public debate. The sides agreed to the event in the hope of settling their differences. But before a crowd of dozens, they could scarcely agree on a shared syntax, much less a common set of facts.

One side said the Civil War was about slavery. The other side said the “War of Secession” was about independence.

One said the flag was racist. The other side said it wasn’t.

One side demanded it come down. The other demanded it stay.

“We have to respect the history of the other, the pain of the other,” pleaded Monteiro.

“The flag will not come down,” said João Leopoldo Padoveze, president of the Fraternity of American Descendants.

He said there was no reason to be ashamed of the flag. It wasn’t racist, and neither were the confederados who waved it. His great-grandmother, and her mother before, had been black. People of color had frequently come to the party. So Padoveze put the Confederate flag on his car, in his office, on the hat he wore while giving speeches.

He wanted people to know the good his ancestors had accomplished in Brazil. They introduced farming equipment and techniques that helped to revolutionize Brazilian agriculture. They founded the first Protestant churches. They established schools all over São Paulo state. Brazil was better because the confederados settled here, he believed, and the flag was their symbol.

“They are saying that I’m racist, when I’m not,” he said. “Just because I have a different view of this very complex thing.”

So Padoveze refused to take it down, despite Monteiro’s pleas. She responded by camping herself outside the party in protest. Last year, scores of people arrived, carrying large banners. “Lower the Confederate flag,” they demanded.

The problem wasn’t the party, Monteiro told the revelers. It was the flag. It had to go.

Padoveze still refused.

“I’ve considered what they’ve said, but I know the flag isn’t what they say it is,” he said. “This is my view, and it’s very personal.”

Monteiro has also refused to yield. Her group is planning to ask local lawmakers for help. They’ve distributed letters of condemnation that have garnered the support of more than 100 religious and civil rights organizations. Younger generations, whose pleas for racial equality have intensified since George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis police custody, have taken up her calls.

This year’s party, scheduled for April, was canceled amid Brazil’s coronavirus outbreak, now the world’s second worst. But both Monteiro and Padoveze know the flag will fly again in their community.

“It’s the story of my family,” Padoveze said.

“It’s racism,” Monteiro said.

“Who’s right, and who’s wrong?” Padoveze asked.

“We have different views of different worlds,” Monteiro said.

Countries Dominated By Incompetent Authoritarian Leaders Have Been Unable To Cope With The Pandemic-- What Will It Take To Make Their Citizens Rise Up?

A modern day tableau like this is only wishful thinking for Russians, Americans, Indians... but what about Brazilians?

A lot of people have noticed that countries with anti-democratic authoritarian leaders-- namely, the U.S., Brazil, Russia and India-- are being hit hardest by the pandemic. It's almost like God wants to punish fascists, especially incompetent fascists:

• Señor Trumpanzee- 2,116,428 confirmed cases
• Bolsonaro- 829,902
• Putin- 511,423
• Modi- 309,603
• Boris Johnson- 292,950

Erdoğan 1,195 New cases today), Khamenei 2,369 new cases today), el-Sisi (1,577 new cases today) and bin Salman (3,921 new cases yesterday) are watching their countries-- respectively Turkey, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia-- spiking gigantically everyday and catching up to the Big Five. Meanwhile, though, a question: are people getting restless, angry and frustrated enough to work towards removing their horrible leaders? Not really... except Trump will be out on his fat ass in January. And then there's Brazil. They've been having frightening surges every day-- 31,197 new cases Tuesday and 1,185 new deaths (the most of any country in the world), 33,100 new cases Wednesday as well as 1,300 new deaths (again the worst in the world) and 27,644 new cases yesterday and 1,123 new deaths (worst in the world)... Today: 24,253 new cases and 843 new deaths so far.

Writing for the New York Times Wednesday, Simon Romero, Letícia Casado and Manuela Andreoni reported that with daily corona-deaths topping anywhere else in them world, with investors bailing on Brazil, with Bolsonaro, his sons and his allies under investigation and his election possibly about to be overturned, "some of the most powerful military figures in Brazil are warning of instability." Bolsonaro and his cronies are embracing the idea of military intervention. "In fact, one of the president’s sons, a congressman who has praised the country’s former military dictatorship, said a similar institutional break was inevitable. 'It’s no longer an opinion about if, but when this will happen,' the president’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, recently told a prominent Brazilian blogger, warning of what he called a looming 'rupture' in Brazil’s democratic system."

Bolsonaro-19... worse for Brazil than COVID-19?

The standoff traces an ominous arc for Brazil, a country that shook off military rule in the 1980s and built a thriving democracy in its wake. Within two decades, Brazil had come to represent the energy and promise of the developing world, with a booming economy and the right to host the World Cup and the Olympics.

Since then, its economy has faltered, corruption scandals have toppled or ensnared many of its leaders and an impeachment battle ousted its powerful leftist government.

Mr. Bolsonaro, a former Army captain, stepped into this tumult, celebrating the country’s military past and promising to restore order. But he has come under blistering criticism for downplaying the virus, sabotaging isolation measures and cavalierly presiding over one of the highest death tolls in the world, saying, “We are sorry for all the dead, but that’s everyone’s destiny.”

He, his family and his supporters are also being pursued on allegations like abuse of power, corruption and illegally spreading misinformation. Yet nearly half of his cabinet is made up of military figures, and now, critics contend, he is relying on the threat of military intervention to ward off challenges to his presidency.

A retired general in Mr. Bolsonaro’s cabinet, Augusto Heleno, the national security adviser, shook the nation in May when he warned of “unpredictable consequences for national stability” after the Supreme Court let an inquiry into Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters move forward.

Another general, the defense minister, swiftly endorsed the provocation, while Mr. Bolsonaro lashed out as well, suggesting that the police ignore the “absurd orders” of the court.

“This is destabilizing the country, right during a pandemic,” said Sergio Moro, the former justice minister who broke with Mr. Bolsonaro in April, said of the threats of military intervention. Though he considers military action unlikely, he added: “It is reprehensible. The country does not need to be living with this type of threat.”

Political leaders and analysts agree that military intervention seems unlikely. Even so, the possibility is hanging over the nation’s democratic institutions, which are scrutinizing Mr. Bolsonaro and his family on multiple fronts.

Two of the president’s sons are under investigation for the kind of disinformation and defamation campaigns that helped get their father elected in 2018, and late last month the federal police raided several properties tied to influential allies of Mr. Bolsonaro. The Superior Electoral Court, which oversees elections, has the authority to use evidence from the inquiry to annul the election and remove Mr. Bolsonaro from office.

Two of his sons are also under investigation for corruption, and the Supreme Court recently authorized an inquiry into allegations that Mr. Bolsonaro tried to replace the federal police chief in order to protect his family and friends.

Even the president’s handling of the pandemic is under legal threat: On Monday, a Supreme Court justice ordered the government to stop suppressing data on Brazil’s surging death toll.

The threats of military intervention have incited a broad backlash, even from some senior members of the armed forces. And General Heleno, the national security adviser, later said that he did not support a coup, contending he was misunderstood.

Still, military and civilian officials in Mr. Bolsonaro’s own administration-- as well as allies of the president in Congress, evangelical megachurches and military associations-- say the maneuvering is aimed at heading off any attempts by Brazil’s legislative and judicial institutions to oust the president.

Silas Malafaia, a right-wing televangelist close to Mr. Bolsonaro, insisted that the president had not told him of any plan for military intervention. Still, he argued that the armed forces had the right to prevent courts from overstepping or even ousting the president.

“That’s not a coup,” Mr. Malafaia said. “It’s instilling order where there is disorder.”

The pro-Bolsonaro officials issuing such threats are generally not referring to the way coups have often been carried out in Latin America, with the armed forces toppling a civilian leader to install one of their own.

Instead, they seem to be urging something similar to what happened in Peru in 1992, when Alberto Fujimori, the right-wing leader, used the armed forces to dissolve Congress, reorganize the judiciary and hunt down political opponents.

Mr. Bolsonaro, who still draws support from about 30 percent of Brazilians, already casts himself as the embodiment of Brazilian military culture, and portrays the armed forces as ethical and efficient managers.

Brazil’s armed forces already exercise exceptional influence in his government. Military figures, including retired four-star generals, account for 10 of 22 ministers in the cabinet. The government has named nearly 2,900 other active-duty members of the military to administration posts.

The clout of Brazil’s armed forces was on display when congressional leaders mostly exempted them from a 2019 pensions overhaul, allowing members of the military to avoid the deeper benefits cuts endured by other parts of society.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s pandemic response showcased the military’s rising profile in his government-- as well the risks for leaders of the armed forces when Brazilians start ascribing blame as things go badly awry.

...Sidelined and balking at expanding the use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug promoted by Mr. Bolsonaro that has not been proven effective against the virus, the health minister was replaced. His successor lasted only a few weeks until he resigned, replaced by an army general, Eduardo Pazuello.

One former official in the health ministry said the abrupt changes created a sense of chaos within the agency, resulting in weeks of dysfunction and paralysis at the most crucial time-- when the country should have been fighting the uncontrolled spread of the virus.

...Carlos Fico, a historian at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who studies the Brazilian military, said the growing power of the armed forces carried the risk of revealing their incompetence in crucial areas.

“They think that bombastic declarations will make things happen as in the military realm, where an order is given and those of lower rank obey,” Mr. Fico said.

But with the military now guiding the pandemic response, Mr. Fico added, “They’re running the risk of being blamed by society for what happens next.”

Top allies of Mr. Bolsonaro insist that the armed forces have no plans for a coup. “Not one four-star general is in favor of military intervention,” said Sostenes Cavalcante, a right-wing congressman.

But in the same breath, Mr. Cavalcante argued that something must be done to curb the power of the Supreme Court. He contended that the talk of a coup by Mr. Bolsonaro’s son was merely a way of pressuring the judiciary.

“You could interpret that as the Supreme Court having overstepped its authority,” Mr. Cavalcante said.

At the same time, some officials within Mr. Bolsonaro’s administration are actively examining scenarios in which the military might intervene. One military official in the government who was not authorized to speak publicly said an intervention remained off the radar for now, but that certain moves by the judiciary, such as ordering a search of Mr. Bolsonaro’s palace as part of an investigation, could change that.

Similarly, the official added, any potential annulment of the 2018 election by a judge would also be considered unacceptable, because it would remove not only Mr. Bolsonaro, but also his running mate and vice president, Hamilton Mourão, a retired general.

Mr. Mourão has repeatedly asserted that no kind of military takeover is under consideration. But even the debate over military intervention is raising concern about the resilience of Brazil’s democratic institutions and a return to chronic political instability, with constant military meddling.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former civilian president who was exiled during the military dictatorship, said he didn’t think a coup was imminent. But he worried that Mr. Bolsonaro’s intimidation tactics could intensify.

“How do democracies die? You don’t need a military coup,” Mr. Cardoso, 88, who has already urged Mr. Bolsonaro to resign, told reporters. “The president himself can seek extraordinary powers, and he can take them.”

The Pandemic In The Developing Countries-- Young People Are Dying

Russia is battling it out with Brazil for the number 2 spot behind Trumpland for the most cases of COVID-19. Right now Brazil has taken the lead. Though the U.S. seems untouchable in the realm of caseloads-- blowing through the 1,700,000 make yesterday (with 19,790 new cases Sunday), Brazil has been steadily pulling away from Russia over the past few days. On Monday, Russia reported 353,427 confirmed cases with 8,946 new cases, while Brazil reported 376,669 total confirmed cases and 13,051 new ones. Both are way past the old frontline countries like Spain (482 new cases), Italy (300 new cases), France (358 new cases), Germany (461 new cases) and Belgium (250 new cases). Only the U.K. is showing big new numbers (2,405). The real competition will be with India (7,113 new cases), Peru (4,205 new cases), Chile (4,895 new cases), Mexico (3,329 new cases) Pakistan (2,164 new cases)... The pandemic is spreading in le tiers monde-- and that's going to be really horrific... and not containable.

Washington Post reporters in Brazil, Terrence McCoy and Heloísa Traiano, wrote about the pandemic there Sunday. It really sounds pretty horrible. First of all, they wrote that "the narrative seared into the global consciousness in the early months of the pandemic-- that the virus spared the young and ravaged the elderly-- was not what she was watching unfold in Brazil. Younger people were being infected in Brazil and dying. "As the coronavirus escalates its assault on the developing world, the victim profile is beginning to change. The young are dying of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at rates unseen in wealthier countries-- a development that further illustrates the unpredictable nature of the disease as it pushes into new cultural and geographic landscapes."

McCoy was part of a reporting team back in early April looking at the devastation starting to be wrought in third world countries. This is from nearly two months ago; it's much worse now:

Peru tried to do everything right. Officials declared an early national lockdown-- and backed it up with 16,000 arrests. Yet confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus are surging, up nearly 60 percent since last weekend.

In Egypt, observers say a repressive government is vastly undercounting the infected. In Brazil, where the president has dubbed Latin America’s largest outbreak a “fantasy,” numbers are skyrocketing.

...[E]pidemiologists and other public health experts say the coronavirus is poised to spread dangerously south, engulfing developing nations already plagued by fraying health-care systems, fragile governments, and impoverished populations in which social distancing can be practically impossible.

They warned of an amplified global crisis in the coming weeks, one striking nations that can least handle it at a time when wealthy countries are likely to be too preoccupied with outbreaks of their own to offer the kind of assistance they’ve extended during episodes of disease that were confined to the developing world. Add the extreme population density and poor sanitary conditions in vast urban slums, and experts warn that the pain of the pandemic is about to tilt quickly from richer nations to poorer ones.

“In three to six weeks, Europe and America will continue in the throes of this-- but there is no doubt the center will move to places like Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Monrovia,” said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “We need to be very worried.”

India, one of the first nations in the world to impose social distancing rules, has reported 1,397 cases of covid-19. Analysts say the health system would not be equipped to deal with larger numbers. The country has 0.5 hospital beds for every 1,000 people, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The United States has 2.8. South Korea has 12.3.

Experts say there’s no official count of intensive-care beds or ventilators. Mumbai anesthesiologist Atul Kulkarni, editor of the Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine, has estimated there are about 67,000 intensive-care beds in the country of 1.3 billion. State-level resources offer a grimmer picture: One study found that Madhya Pradesh, home to more than 70 million people, had just 1,816 intensive-care beds.

A spike in infections would quickly overwhelm those resources. In a worst-case scenario, a group of epidemiologists and biostatisticians predicted, India could have 915,000 infections by May 15. To prepare, India has banned the export of goods that could be crucial in the fight against the coronavirus, including ventilators, surgical masks and the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, now being studied as a possible treatment for covid-19-- a decision that could complicate the ability of other developing nations to obtain such items.

Today, much of the fastest growth of the virus is in the developing world. These were the new cases since Saturday reported Sunday:

• Brazil- 16,220
• India- 7,113
• Peru- 4,205
• Chile- 3,709
• Mexico- 3,329
• Saudi Arabia- 2,399
• Pakistan- 2,164
• Bangladesh- 1,532
• Qatar- 1,501
• South Africa- 1,240
• Colombia- 998
• Egypt- 752
• Argentina- 723
• Afghanistan- 584
• Oman- 513
• Cameroon- 490

Egypt is starting to relax restrictions-- while reporting (Sunday) a new single-day record of 29 COVID-19 deaths, raising the death toll to 764 in the country-- as well as 752 new cases, bringing the total number of infections to 17,265. The nationwide curfew is being reduced from 13 hours to 10 hours as the government considers gradually reducing restrictions.





"In Brazil," reported McCoy and Traiano, "15 percent of deaths have been people under 50-- a rate more than 10 times greater than in Italy or Spain. In Mexico, the trend is even more stark: Nearly one-fourth of the dead have been between 25 and 49. In India, officials reported this month that nearly half of the dead were younger than 60. In Rio de Janeiro state, more than two-thirds of hospitalizations are for people younger than 49... Analysts say the emerging data suggests many of the problems that have long troubled the developing world-- intractable poverty, extreme inequality, fragile health systems-- are increasing vulnerability to the disease. In countries with more poverty and fewer resources, people who might have survived elsewhere are instead dying."

George Gray Molina, chief economist for the United Nations Development Program, said poverty is triggering “compounding effects.” Because population density is so much higher in much of the developing world-- and because so many people must keep working to survive-- a far greater share of the population ends up being exposed to the virus.

The virus then spreads through a population that’s less resilient. People in the developing world grapple not only with the diseases that have long been associated with it-- malaria, dengue, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS-- but increasingly with those more closely associated with wealthier countries. Rates of diabetes, obesity and hypertension are surging. But treatment for many such illnesses is lacking.

When newly infected coronavirus patients already weakened by preexisting conditions seek treatment, they find hospital systems that are overwhelmed and unequipped to handle the deluge of patients.

“It all points to social economic status and poverty,” Gray Molina said. The positive benefits associated with the developing world, such as younger populations, are being “wiped out.”

“As this plays out,” he said, “we will see a balancing of the scales.”

When the coronavirus hit Brazil, it was an infection of the rich. Brought in by travelers to the United States and Europe, the coronavirus circulated primarily among the wealthy and connected. The Brazilian senate leader caught it. So did President Jair Bolsonaro’s press secretary. The Rio de Janeiro Country Club along Ipanema beach, one of Brazil’s most exclusive clubs, suffered a devastating outbreak.

Domingos Alves, a data scientist with the University of São Paulo, has been tracking the virus here since those early weeks. The pattern in Brazil at first mirrored that in the developed world: The dead were almost exclusively elderly. Coronavirus patients were flocking to private hospitals, and anyone who needed a hospital bed received one.

But by early April, as the virus began seeping into the favelas and slums of São Paulo and Rio, and the public hospital system started buckling, Alves noticed a sharp shift in the data. Younger people were being hospitalized at higher rates. People younger than 49 were dying. The disease was reaching lower into the demographic pyramid. The victim profile was changing.

...Bolsonaro, a global leader in minimizing the virus, repeats a mantra: Only the elderly are at risk. So the best policy is to isolate only them. He has called it “vertical isolation.”

“What has happened in the world has shown that the people at risk are older than 60,” he declared in a national address in late March. “So why close the schools?”

The contradictory messaging in Brazil-- between local leaders begging people to stay inside and a president calling people to return to the streets-- has fueled widespread confusion. As the virus explodes here, cresting 300,000 cases and 19,000 dead, people are increasingly ignoring isolation guidelines. The beach boardwalks in Rio de Janeiro are packed on weekends. The typical infected person infects nearly three others, according to researchers at Imperial College London, one of the world’s highest rates.

Pedro Archer, a physician at a public hospital in Rio, said his young patients have been stunned by their illness. Some had parroted Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly belittled the illness as a “gripezinha”-- a little flu. Until they got sick.

“I have people say to me, ‘I really had thought this was only a gripezinha, and now I see this is serious,’ ” Archer said. “I’ve seen people dying who have said the same thing.”

Others keep going out because they must. Government aid-- around $105 per month for informal workers-- has for many been either blocked by bureaucratic hurdles or woefully insufficient. Buses are still filled with people heading to work. Lines of people waiting for emergency funds have snaked around banks.

“Young people are dying at a higher rate because they are coming into contact with the virus many times more, because of their working and living conditions,” said Ligia Bahia, a public health professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. “Doormen are still working. Housekeepers are still working... Their viral load, their exposure, is greater.”

Sunday night, Trumpanzee kicked his fellow fascist Bolsonsaro where it hurts... when he was done. No one from Brazil, or even having visited Brazil in the last two weeks, can enter to the U.S. Expect other countries to start using that standard against Americans as Trumpland is seen to have become the fount of contagion for the whole world.

If the U.S. has the most fucked up people in the world-- in terms of classic idiocy-- the U.K. is close behind. Although their pandemic is worsening, they've picked an arbitrary date to reopen-- June 15. The World Heath Organization warned yesterday that "countries where coronavirus infections are declining could still face an 'immediate second peak' if they let up too soon on measures to halt the outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Monday. They recommended that the U.S., Canada and the EU counties should "continue to put in place the public health and social measures, the surveillance measures, the testing measures and a comprehensive strategy to ensure that we continue on a downwards trajectory and we don’t have an immediate second peak." Good luck with that!

Other Countries Are Coping-- Or Not Coping-- With The Pandemic As Well

A couple of weeks ago I visited my doctor at the cancer hospital she works in. The policy there has always been to not admit anyone with infectious diseases. The hospital just cares for cancer patients and is also a major research center for cancer cures. A huge number of patients are immune-compromised and any kind of infection could be a death sentence. During our chat, she told me that doctors there had been asked-- I didn't ask by who but I assumed it was a government entity-- to start wrapping their heads around ceasing to treat elderly cancer patients. I think she said 60 or 65. She was horrified at the prospect.

Soon after someone sent me the video from a doctor in Madrid who was even more distraught than my doctor. Weeping, he said that in Madrid coronavirus patients over the age of 65 were being sedated and allowed to die because there aren't enough respirators in Spain. He mentioned that elderly patients were removed from respirators if they were currently being kept alive by them.

In the past three years, Trump "ignored multiple direct warnings-- briefings, reports, simulations, intelligence assessments-- that a pandemic was likely and that the government didn’t have enough masks, ventilators, or antiviral drugs to deal with it. His administration was told exactly what to do: second-guess case detection rates, prepare rapid production of tests, and line up extra funding and personal protective equipment. He did none of it. He stiffed a budget request for preparedness funds, and he disbanded the National Security Council unit in charge of pandemics... Trump’s administration learned of the outbreak in China around New Year’s Day, but he brushed off briefings about it, figuring it hadn’t spread in the United States. (The CDC offered to send its own experts to China, but China refused, and Trump-- overriding advice and U.S. intelligence-- backed off.) On Jan. 21, the CDC reported the first known American infection. But in an interview on CNBC, Trump scoffed, 'It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.' Data released by the World Health Organization showed the coronavirus was killing victims at a far higher rate than swine flu did. (That remains true, even though calculated mortality rates from the coronavirus have declined.) But the Trump administration didn’t declare a public health emergency until Jan. 31. The president had to be pushed to ban travelers from China, and he did nothing domestically. In late January, the administration rebuffed an HHS request for money to buy masks and other emergency supplies. Throughout February, as U.S. intelligence agencies monitored the spread of the virus in Europe and Asia, Trump insisted the United States was safe. When a CDC official raised concerns in public, Trump rebuked her for scaring the stock market."

"We're told to put on a brave face," said another doctor in Madrid whose audio tape the doctor in the video played, "fill up with courage and go to work knowing that you are going to have to let many people die." He wants to penalize the politicians who-- like Trump-- were too cowardly to act fast and decisively while the pandemic grew; he wants their salaries to be docked and used to buy respirators. The video is heartbreaking.

The fascist-leaning Trumpist president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, sounded like the other side of that coin. People are demanding his resignation because he has been telling Brazilians to stay at work, ignore safety guidelines, "take it like a man" and reminding his countrymen that "we all must die one day." On Sunday, Twitter deleted two of his tweets in which he questioned quarantine measures aimed at containing the coronavirus, on the grounds that they violated the social network's rules.

Typhoid Mary shakes hands with Captain Corona

The far-right leader had posted several videos in which he flouted his government's social distancing guidelines by mixing with supporters on the streets of Brasilia and urging them to keep the economy going.

Two of the posts were removed and replaced with a notice explaining why they had been taken down.

Twitter explained in a statement that it had recently expanded its global rules on managing content that contradicted public health information from official sources and could put people at greater risk of transmitting COVID-19.

In one of the deleted videos, Bolsonaro tells a street vendor, "What I have been hearing from people is that they want to work."

"What I have said from the beginning is that 'we are going to be careful, the over-65s stay at home,'" he said.

"We just can't stand still, there is fear because if you don't die of the disease, you starve," the vendor is seen telling Bolsonaro, who responds: "You're not going to die!"

In another video, the president calls for a "return to normality," questioning quarantine measures imposed by governors and some mayors across the giant South American country as an effective containment measure against the virus.

"If it continues like this, with the amount of unemployment what we will have later is a very serious problem that will take years to be resolved," he said of the isolation measures.

"Brazil cannot stop or we'll turn into Venezuela," Bolsonaro later told reporters outside his official residence.

On Saturday, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta highlighted the importance of containment as a means of fighting the coronavirus, which has already infected 3,904 people in Brazil, leaving 114 dead, according to the latest official figures.

"Some people want me to shut up, follow the protocols," said Bolsonaro. "How many times does the doctor not follow the protocol?"

"Let's face the virus with reality. It is life, we must all die one day."

In the four videos posted on his Twitter account, Bolsonaro is seen surrounded by small crowds as he walked about the capital.

Bolsonaro has described the coronavirus as "a flu" and advocated the reopening of schools and shops, with self-isolation necessary solely for the over-60s.

It's easy to say, "Brazil elected this psychopath; they deserve what he does to them." Fair enough-- for the 57,797,847 people who voted for him-- but what about the 47,040,906, who voted against him? They don't deserve to die-- not any more than the people -- a majority-- in the U.S. who voted against Trump do.

Tom Phillips, reporting from Rio for The Guardian yesterday, wrote that Brazilians are demanding Bolsonaro resign for "downplaying the virus and willfully undermining efforts to slow its advance with shutdowns and quarantines."

“Brazil and the world are facing an emergency unprecedented in modern history … [and] in our country the emergency is exacerbated by an irresponsible president. Jair Bolsonaro is the greatest obstacle to urgent decisions being taken to reduce the spread of the infection [and] save lives,” said the document, first published in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.

They added: “Bolsonaro is in no position to keep governing Brazil... He commits crimes… lies and fosters chaos, taking advantage of the despair of our most vulnerable citizens.

“We need unity and understanding to face up to the pandemic, not a president who goes against public health authorities and puts his authoritarian political interests above the lives of everyone else.

“Bolsonaro is more than a political problem-- he has become a public health problem… He should resign,” they concluded.

“He needs to be urgently contained and must answer for the crimes he is committing against our people.”

The declaration, Brazil Cannot Be Destroyed By Bolsonaro, was signed by leading voices from across the Brazilian left including Ciro Gomes, Flávio Dino, Manuela d’Ávila, Fernando Haddad and Guilherme Boulos.

Ciro Gomes said Bolsonaro’s conduct represented “the difference between hundred of thousands of deaths or tens of thousands of deaths in Brazil.”

“I believe he must answer for crimes against humanity at the International Court of Justice in the Hague-- and I will work towards this,” Gomes told The Guardian.

Asked what his message to Bolsonaro was, Gomes said: “Resign, you reckless man.”

Boulos said the irresponsible, erratic and backwards behaviour of Bolsonaro-- who one Brazilian commentator this week nicknamed “Captain Corona”-- meant he had to go.

“More than a political crisis, Bolsonaro now represents a public health problem,” Boulos told The Guardian. “We see no way for Bolsonaro to continue governing the country-- this will cost Brazil a tremendous number of human lives.”

Boulos claimed Bolsonaro’s undermining of quarantine and social distancing measures was partly the result of his being beholden to business owners who opposed a shutdown because it meant they would lose money.

“He represents the most perverse economic interests that couldn’t care less about people’s lives. They’re worried about maintaining their profitability,” Boulos said.

Bolsonaro has rejected criticism of his response, which he claims is designed to protect workers and the economy. “We’re going to tackle the virus but tackle it like fucking men-- not like kids,” Brazil’s president declared on Sunday.

And brief blurbs from around the word:

Phuket is a tropical island developed for tourism off the southwest coast on Thailand. It gets something like 39 million tourists a year. But not this year. Yesterday, the government closed down all points of entry.

Moscow is on lockdown but some people weren't paying any attention to the guidelines yesterday (day 1) and others deny the seriousness of the pandemic and, like Trump and Bolsonaro, dismiss it as a flu.

At least Putin didn't lick Protsenko's hand

Can you imagine someone deciding to go on a cruise now? People do. And, of course, they get coronavirus and some die. There are two Holland America ships that have been stranded in the Pacific and which Panama finally decided to allow to traverse the Panama Canal-- without stopping-- in order to get into the Caribbean. There are dead people and sick people and the ships hope to be allowed to dock in Fort Lauderdale. One ship, the Zaandam has 1,243 guests and 586 crew and 138 suspected cases (and 4 bodies).

So How's The Battle Against The Pandemic Going So Far?

Die For Him Grampa by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday ALG Research e-mailed subscribers with the results of their own tracking of the pandemic. They wrote that the U.S. currently has a patchwork of restrictions in place [a highly ineffective way to deal with the pandemic]. The whole country has to be shut down-- and really shut down-- for this to work. Right now, Democratic governors who have taken at least some action in that direction are in these states:

Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Louisiana, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Three Republican governors in blue states have also ordered shutdowns-- New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts-- and 5 Republican governor in red states have also taken action-- Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Idaho and Alaska.

Do shutdowns work? Yes, if they retreated seriously. Statistical proof.

Local governments are also taking action in states with governors who are part of the Republican Party death cult-- like Birmingham in Alabama and all over Texas and Florida. Meanwhile "school closures have impacted 55 million students, more people are working from home or furloughed, unemployment claims have skyrocketed, and news covering the virus has completely captured the attention of the American public. According to Gallup two-thirds of Americans say that coronavirus has disrupted their lives either a great deal (30%) or a fair amount (36%), and more than half expect things to remain this way for a few more months.

In terms of behavior, polling done by Ipsos in partnership with Axios has found that as weeks go by, more people are under self-quarantine, have stopped attending large gatherings, have cancelled travel and have stopped going out to eat and visiting friends. (This poll is part of a weekly tracking survey fielded on the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, and will be useful in following changes in daily life (and emotional state) that we need to be on the lookout for.)

The latest numbers from a Washington Post-ABC News poll show that roughly 9 in 10 say they are staying home "as much as possible" and say they have stopped going to bars and restaurants. About 6 in 10 say they have stockpiled food and household supplies at home. Their poll was conducted March 22-25, just after the Ipsos poll, so we're able to see how people's personal activities and behaviors continue to change, seemingly overnight, as fears grow.

An Emerson College/Nexstar National Poll finds a large majority of respondents (70%) are somewhat or very worried that they or an immediate family member may catch coronavirus.

Americans' are even more concerned about their personal finances. A plurality (42%) are very concerned about their personal finances, 36% are somewhat concerned, with 33% not so concerned.

Navigator Research found that 58% of respondents under 45 know someone who has lost their job, and 20% of Americans' now say they are dipping into their savings.

According to the Ipsos/Axios poll mentioned earlier, sharply increased numbers of Americans report worsening mental health (35% worse vs 22% last week) and emotional well-being (43% from 29%).

...FiveThirtyEight's polling average today has Trump's approval rating at 45.8%, with disapproval at 49.6%. According to a recent CBS News poll, a majority say President Trump is doing a good job handling the outbreak (53%), and 54% are optimistic about his administration's ability to handle it from here.

Trump has experienced a rise in popularity-- with some polling giving him 49% approval, the highest of his presidency-- which some attribute to a "presidential approval rally effect." Per Gallup, presidential job approval has historically increased when the country is faced by a national threat. Every president from Franklin Roosevelt (World War 2) through George W. Bush (9/11, +35 point bump) saw their approval rating rocket at least 10 points after a significant national event of this kind.

New York Magazine has a story called Trump's Approval Ratings Are Up, But for How Long? that speculates on how the pandemic and the corresponding economic fallout could impact Trump's hopes for re-election. It's impossible to predict what will happen in November, but this story looks at data and trends and is an interesting read.

Most Americans (57%) say the nation's efforts to combat the coronavirus are going badly right now, and most see a months-long process before it is contained.

Gallup conducted polling on the coronavirus response and found that state governments (i.e., Governors) are the real leaders on responding to the Coronavirus. They receive an 82% approval rating-- 22 points higher than the President.

In Michigan, Governor Gretchen Whitmer (60% pos/22% neg job rating) is outperforming Trump (45% pos/45% neg job rating) in a statewide poll. And in North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper (63% pos/19% neg job rating) is also outperforming Trump (49% pos/45% neg job rating).

The Gallup chart below shows that the partisan divide is small when looking at approval ratings for hospitals and state governments, but a huge gap exists when looking at Trump, Pence and the news media.

And while most people consider this pandemic to be a crisis, CBS News found that Americans' are optimistic about a few things: scientists' ability to find a vaccine or a cure (82%), their local hospitals' ability to handle an outbreak (65%), as well as in Americans' ability to do what's needed to stop the spread of the virus (59%).

No one knows for sure how things will look in the coming weeks and months. Trump said that he wants to re-open America at Easter, and the New York Times has a piece on what would happen if we did.

Remember, the voices most opposed to the shutdowns, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Koch network, will always choose lucre over lives. Lee Fang wrote for The Intercept this week that "Americans for Prosperity, the pro-corporate pressure group founded and funded by billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, wants employees to return to work despite desperate pleas from public health officials that people should stay home as much as possible to help contain the spread of the coronavirus. As states began to order nonessential businesses to shut down last week, AFP released a statement calling for all businesses to remain open. 'Rather than blanket shutdowns, the government should allow businesses to continue to adapt and innovate to produce the goods and services Americans need, while continuing to do everything they can to protect the public health,' said Emily Seidel, chief executive of AFP, in a press release.

AFP’s position, which directly contradicts the advice of medical experts who say that social isolation is essential to curbing the spread of the coronavirus, comes after the group lobbied the Trump administration in 2018 to rescind $1 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Much of AFP’s recommended cuts to government programs, which included CDC money for infectious disease control and global health, became part of the official White House budget request, though most were not adopted by Congress.

The cuts, AFP argued, would “relieve the burden overspending is placing on all taxpayers.” The CDC is now one of the front-line organizations dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which has impacted nearly 70,000 people in the United States and has claimed over 1,000 lives.

The libertarian advocacy network has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying for corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and reductions to social welfare programs, particularly state Medicaid programs. This aggressive advocacy record has come into focus in recent days as Americans confront the coronavirus pandemic. Medicaid funding is seen as a critical tool for treating sick patients, and many are now questioning the wisdom of reductions to the CDC’s funding and staff.

Internal memos from AFP reveal the size and scope of the organization, which employed 650 staff members during the 2016 election and has successfully worked to block Medicaid expansion in at least four states. During the 2016 election, the group also aired negative advertising sharply criticizing Hillary Clinton and Senate Democrats, an electioneering push that dramatically shaped the current balance of power in Washington, D.C.

The group has since used its government influence to slash environmental rules, retreat from the Paris Climate Accord, and demand cuts to federal programs. It also helped secure $1.5 trillion in tax cuts as part of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul.

Let's go back, for a moment to the findings about how Americans trust governors on COVID-19 far more than they trust the dysfunctional narcissistic excuse for a president. The same appears to be true in Brazil, where neo-fascist Trump crony, Jair Bolsonaro, is doing virtually nothing to combat the pandemic threatening his country. Governors to the rescue-- "defying his call to reopen schools and businesses, dismissing his argument that the cure of widespread shutdowns to contain the spread of the new coronavirus is worse than the disease," something Bolsonaro picked up from Señor Trumpanzee.

Like Trump, "Bolsonaro contends that the clampdown already ordered by many governors will deeply wound the already beleaguered economy and spark social unrest. In a nationally televised address Tuesday night, he urged governors to limit isolation only to high-risk people and lift the strict anti-virus measures they have imposed in their regions... he country’s governors protested on Wednesday that his instructions run counter to health experts’ recommendations and endanger Latin America’s largest population. They said they would continue with their strict measures and, in a joint letter, nearly all of them begged the federal government join forces with states. The rebellion even included traditional allies of Brazil’s president."

This week Sasha Abramsky noted a similar pattern here in the U.S.-- governors acting while Trump dawdles on TV and twitter. The entirely incompetent Trumpist Regime "appears frozen in its tracks. With no universal health care system," she wrote, "it is flailing as to how to contain an epidemic when containment strategies rely on early identification of virus carriers. It has struggled to coordinate a national strategy for securing medical supplies. It has shown a shocking inability to even get test kits out to the states. It has no guaranteed paid sick leave-- let alone the concept of guaranteeing wages in exchange for temporarily shuttered companies not firing their workers... Trump, who only reluctantly, and extremely late in the day, was forced to recognize the severity of the pandemic, has dithered and put out scientifically untenable statements, resisted national standards for how to enforce social distancing and expressed his disdain for the notion of stay-home orders and bans on large gatherings. In his public appearances, including an interview on Fox on Tuesday in which he advocated reopening the U.S. for business by Easter, he routinely seems more concerned about the stock market and his own political standing than he is about people’s lives. As a result, it has fallen to state governors and city mayors to try to craft their own responses in order to flatten their local infection curves."