A COVID tale of two countries and two leaders

One of the unemployed and homeless in São Paulo cooking dinner

The ex-president undeniably lied to the American people about the seriousness of the pandemic. he even denied there would be an epidemic in the US. He downplayed a need for lockdowns. He constantly mocked mask wearing and attacked experts who argued that masks were necessary. He blamed states, especially democratic states, for a poor response. At one point even said that he had no responsibility in dealing with the pandemic. The ex-president had no plan to distribute vaccine, apparently not caring and/or maybe even wanting to sabotage the US response effort.

That massive leadership incompetence and failure led many state governors and tens of millions of Americans to follow the president's lead and ignore, downplay or deny there was a significant problem. One US expert recently estimated that the US should have been able to limit US deaths to about 100,000 had the ex-president and his administration been competent, focused and serious.

The New York Times writes about the awful and still deteriorating situation in Brazil. There are striking similarities between Brazil and the US. 

RIO DE JANEIRO — Rail-thin teenagers hold placards at traffic stops with the word for hunger — fome — in large print. Children, many of whom have been out of school for over a year, beg for food outside supermarkets and restaurants. Entire families huddle in flimsy encampments on sidewalks, asking for baby formula, crackers, anything.

From the start of the outbreak, Brazil’s president has been skeptical of the disease’s impact, and scorned the guidance of health experts, arguing that the economic damage wrought by the lockdowns, business closures and mobility restrictions they recommended would be a bigger threat than the pandemic to the country’s weak economy.

That trade-off led to one of the world’s highest death tolls, but also foundered in its goal — to keep the country afloat.

And about 117 million people, or roughly 55 percent of the country’s population, faced food insecurity, with uncertain access to enough nutrition, in 2020 — a leap from the 85 million who did so two years previous, the study showed.

Last year, as governors and mayors around Brazil signed decrees shutting down nonessential businesses and restricting mobility, Mr. Bolsonaro called those measures “extreme” and warned that they would result in malnutrition.

The president also dismissed the threat of the virus, sowed doubts about vaccines, which his government has been slow to procure, and often encouraged crowds of supporters at political events.

As a second wave of cases this year led to the collapse of the health care system in several cities, local officials again imposed a raft of strict measures — and found themselves at war with Mr. Bolsonaro.

Early this month, as the daily death toll from the virus sometimes surpassed 4,000, Mr. Bolsonaro acknowledged the severity of the humanitarian crisis facing his country. But he took no responsibility and instead faulted local officials.

In an open letter addressed to Brazilian authorities in late March, more than 1,500 economists and businesspeople asked the government to impose stricter measures, including lockdown.

“It is not reasonable to expect economic activity to recover from an uncontrolled epidemic,” the experts wrote.

Laura Carvalho, an economist, published a study showing that restrictions can have a negative short-term impact on a country’s financial health, but that, in the long run, it would have been a better strategy.  

Creomar de Souza, a political analyst and the founder of the consultancy Dharma Politics in Brasília, said the president underestimated the threat the pandemic posed to the country and failed to put together a comprehensive plan to address it.

“They thought it wouldn’t be something serious and figured that the health system would be able to handle it,” he said.

The similarities are obvious. One can argue that failed presidential leadership in the US needlessly caused hundreds of thousands of lives and, say, about $10 trillion (or more) in needless economic loss. It could even have caused needless deaths and economic loss in countries like Brazil that looked to and emulated the US president as an authority on how to deal with the pandemic. That US authority turned out to be grossly incompetent at best, and active sabotage at worst.

Should the US government donate some food, money or vaccine to try to help Brazil, or does the US owe nothing because the US has no moral or any other kind of authority? After all, Brazil is a sovereign state and it decides its own policies and fate. What about other nations that need help, especially ones that at least tried in good faith to deal with the pandemic?