Opinion – Rodrigo Zeidan: The Bolsonaro Variant

counterfactual This is one of the most important words in applied economics. The idea is that the effects of public policies are estimated by the difference between what happened and what should have happened, had there not been the intervention to be studied.

In the case of the pandemic in Brazil, the results are clear: the Brazilian government was one of the worst in the world in the fight against Covid. Tens of thousands of Brazilians died needlessly. The list of mistakes is almost endless: gripezinha, selling miraculous cures, “there won’t be a second wave”, fights with governors, defenestration of ministers, corruption in the purchase of masks and respirators, disincentive to social distancing measures, reaction to emergency aid , delay in the purchase of vaccines, denialist speeches and much more.

And there is no shortage of scientific evidence of the harmful effects of government. Ajzenman and coauthors showed that the Brazilian president’s unscientific rhetoric weakened social distancing in Brazil, something even more damaging when the vaccine was about to arrive. This result was corroborated by Bursztyn and colleagues, as well as Block Jr. and co-authors.

The speech by the Ministry of Economy that there would be no second wave in November 2020, when vaccines were to be approved, seems criminal, as do the government’s 11 refusals to close vaccine contracts with the world’s main manufacturers. How many lives would have been saved by the 70 million doses of Pfizer vaccine that the government failed to buy when we needed it most?

Added to this is the role of populism in the dissemination of anti-scientific discourse, as shown by Peci and others. The result is unmistakable. Almeida and co-authors estimate the effect of populist rhetoric on the behavior of Brazilians and find that, with each attack on social distancing measures, the rate of transmission of the virus increased. With each advance against state governments, more people died from Covid-19.

Brazil was not the only country in the world to have recalcitrant policies to combat the pandemic. But it was the only country to suffer from the spread of the Bolsonaro variant of Covid-19. The authors show that the Bolsonaro variant dominated all others during 2021; it seems that more people died for it than for delta and omicron. More than 300,000 deaths could have been avoided by managing rice and beans.

A federal government that coordinates social distancing measures and mass vaccination would suffice. A minimally competent government, concerned with increasing transmission rates, requiring masks, especially before vaccines are ready, and effective communication would be no different from what most other countries have had. However, at each stage of the pandemic, the Brazilian government acted against the population. This is the legacy that must be in the mind of every Brazilian in the October election.

However, at each stage of the pandemic, the Brazilian government acted against the population. This is the legacy that must be in the mind of every Brazilian in the October election.

There is no shortage of studies to corroborate the Brazilian federal government’s disaster in managing the pandemic. The government tries to buy the election through a Kamikaze PEC, but we cannot forget that the president’s disaster goes far beyond double-digit inflation and millions of Brazilians going hungry.

Really, the president is not a gravedigger. If you were, you would have to work 24 hours a day to bury the dead for your incompetent policies. And it would probably only end in the next century.