Brazil: Inequality and Catastrophe

The course of COVID-19 was exceptionally tragic in Brazil, arguably the country with the worst pandemic response on Earth, the only one where the government not only neglected its basic duties but actively undermined measures that could have contained the pandemic and protected the population, and the greatest experiment in ‘herd immunity’ in modern times. The death toll in Brazil reached 1,000 on 12 April 2020, 10,000 on 11 May, 100,000 on 10 August, 200,000 on 9 January 2021 and 400,000 on 1 May.