Analysis: High Covid-19 Risk People Head 28 Percent of Brazilian Households

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Almost 30 percent of Brazilian households (19 million) are headed by someone with a high risk profile for Covid-19, according to a study by the Locomotiva Institute.

The elderly and individuals with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and asthma, make up 80 million Brazilians, or 40 percent of the country’s total population. Together, they move R$2.1 trillion (US$420 billion) per year in personal income, more than classes A, B, and C spend individually.

Of this most vulnerable group, 30 million are aged 60 or over and 50 million are under 60. The health of these people will be reflected in the country’s economy, and any recovery plan should focus this huge slice of the population. “There is a false discussion between health and recovery, which is left open in these figures,” says Renato Meirelles, president of the institute and the study’s author: “Without the risk group, there will be no rebound”.

Gradually, Brazilian states have relaxed the social distancing rules enforced against the spread of Covid-19. A previous study by Locomotiva showed that this process ends up forcing 60 million members of the risk group to return to work because they depend on routine jobs to survive.

A quarter of the risk group is made up of self-employed workers; 12 percent of these people are currently unemployed and seven percent are working in casual jobs, says the survey.

Although the Ministry of Health is now talking about stabilization, the average daily death rate in the country has stood at around 1,000 for a month, which suggests Brazil has not yet experienced the worst of the pandemic.

On Friday, Brazil passed the 70,000 death mark and on Saturday it reached 71,492, according to the media outlet consortium survey. There are 1,840,812 confirmed cases.

Source: Exame