RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A study commissioned by the Senate “Covid CPI” investigative committee reinforces the thesis that the spread of the coronavirus in Brazil was due to the federal government’s “commitment and efficiency” in its policies and practices, rather than negligence.
“On the contrary, the systematization of data shows the commitment and efficiency in favor of the wide spread of the virus in national territory, openly aiming to resume economic activity as soon as possible.”
“The results [of the study] dispel the persistent interpretation that there was [only] incompetence and negligence on the part of the federal government in the management of the pandemic,” the text states.
The study, named “Mapping and analysis of the legal norms of response to Covid-19 in Brazil,” was conducted by the Center for Studies and Research in Health Law (CEPEDISA) of the University of São Paulo’s (USP) School of Public Health. The report, delivered to CPI senators on Monday, June 7, confirms the conclusions drawn in January, when a first version of the document was published.
According to the study, “the confluence between normative, management, and discourse aspects of the federal response to the pandemic was confirmed, with coherence between what was said and what was done. Therefore, the assumption of the presence of a strategy to spread the disease is founded.”
The report bases this assessment on federal government actions such as the “advocacy of herd (or collective) immunity through infection (or transmission) as a form of response to Covid-19, promoting the belief that ‘natural immunity’ resulting from virus infection would protect individuals and lead to pandemic control, as well as unsubstantiated estimates of the number of deaths and the pandemic’s end date.”
The study also recalls the “constant encouragement [by the federal government] for the population’s exposure to the virus and the non-compliance with preventive health measures, based on its denial of the severity of the disease, defense of courage, and the purported existence of an ‘early treatment’ for Covid-19, converted into public policy.”
Another point assessed as part of the “strategy to spread the disease” is the “trivialization of the deaths and sequelae caused by the disease, failing to protect the victims’ families and survivors, promoting the notion that only the elderly or people with comorbidities would die, or people with no access to ‘early treatment’.”
The study also cites the “systematic obstruction of containment measures promoted by governors and mayors, justified by the alleged conflict between protecting health and protecting the economy, which includes spreading the idea that quarantine measures cause greater damage than the virus, and that these measures would lead to hunger and unemployment, rather than the pandemic; the ‘focus on measures of assistance and abstention from measures to prevent the disease, often adopting measures only when challenged by other institutions, particularly the National Congress and the Judiciary’; and ‘attacks on critics of the federal response, the press, and professional journalism, particularly by questioning the extent of the disease in the country’, in addition to ‘awareness of the impropriety of certain conducts.”
“Finally, the persistent conduct of Brazilian federal authorities in the face of the wide spread of the disease in the national territory and the sharp increase in the number of deaths draws attention, although institutions such as the Federal Supreme Court, the Federal Audit Court and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office have pointed out, countless times, the noncompliance with the Brazilian legal order of conscious and voluntary conduct and omissions of federal managers, as well as scientific and health sector bodies have tirelessly done,” says the study.