RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The emblematic Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro this Friday was in mourning in memory of the 400,000 Covid-19 victims in Brazil, one of the countries most affected by the pandemic in the world.
The NGO Rio de Paz today held an event on Copacabana beach in protest against President Jair Bolsonaro government’s management of the pandemic, which has killed more people by Covid-19 in the first 4 months of 2021 than in the whole of last year.
The organization scattered 400 black body bags on the beach, symbolizing the 400,000 coronavirus victims in the country, a sad mark the country surpassed the day before.
“It is a representation of a symbolic scene of the current moment in our history,” said the president of Rio de Paz, Antonio Carlos Costa.
Brazil registered its first coronavirus death on March 12th, 2020 and in just over 14 months has reached 401,186, almost 13% of the world’s total, when Brazil barely represents 3% of the planet’s population.
Brazil is the country with the second highest number of Covid-19-related deaths, after the United States, and the third most infected, with more than 14.5 million, after the U.S. and India, which has now become the main global focus of the pandemic.
“These are facts that were not fabricated by the media and it is humiliating for our democracy. To remain silent at this time means to be accomplices of the crimes committed by the Brazilian ruling class,” Costa pointed out.
In his opinion, “the federal government made a big mistake from the beginning of the pandemic, downplayed the lethal power of the virus, did not provide the country with a nationwide plan and prescribed drugs without the least scientific evidence.”