Brazil’s Covid Data Blackout Is a Tragedy, Ex-Health Chief Says
Brazil has stopped publishing the full set of data on Covid-19 just as the country’s death toll surpassed that of Italy.
(Bloomberg) -- Brazil is limiting the amount of data it publishes about Covid-19 cases and deaths as the government of President Jair Bolsonaro grows uncomfortable with the country’s status as a global hotspot for the pandemic.
The nation reported on Saturday 27,075 new cases and 904 deaths from the coronavirus during the past 24 hours, while omitting consolidated numbers. The government has stopped publishing the full set of data on Friday just as the country’s death toll surpassed that of Italy.
The portion of the health ministry’s website containing information about the pandemic was unavailable for most of Saturday, which got Brazil temporarily pulled from the Johns Hopkins global dashboard. When it came back, it only showed the latest daily numbers -- historical figures including new cases and deaths by date and region, as well as mortality rates were no longer available as of Saturday evening.
“From a health perspective, it’s a tragedy,” former Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said in a webcast on Saturday, likening it to an information blackout on a meningitis epidemic during the nation’s military regime. “Not giving out the information makes the state more harmful than the disease.”
The country, which has lost two health ministers -- including Mandetta -- amid the crisis, had already been limiting the amount of information available on the pandemic. Daily news conferences have become sparse, and usually go on without cabinet members when they occur. Daily figures are being released increasingly late, and now they come out only at 10 p.m. local time.
“It will no longer be a story” on the evening news, Bolsonaro said when asked about the delay on Friday, adding that it takes time to get the consolidated data. He also said the government should release only the number of people who died each day. “Yesterday, almost two-thirds of the deaths were of those who had died in days before.”
The president, who is mulling pulling Brazil out of the World Health Organization, also questioned the data, saying that dying while suffering from Covid-19 is different from dying from it.
“Sometimes the person is 94 years old, has 10 co-morbidities, than they get the virus. It amplifies them,” he told journalists. “And then people say Brazil has record deaths. You can’t compare deaths from a country that has 210 million people with one that has 10 million.”
The changes were met with criticism. Lower House Speaker Rodrigo Maia called for data transparency so that states and municipalities can plan their actions to fight the virus. Sao Paulo state’s Public Defender’s Office filed a motion requesting the health ministry goes back to releasing the data as it previosuly did, website G1 reported. Bruno Dantas, a minister at the country’s audit court, said on Twitter the court and its state branches could take on the task of releasing the data daily.
Brazil’s response to the pandemic has been marred by political infighting and lack of coordination. Bolsonaro, who has dismissed the disease as “just a flu,” has repeatedly called on Brazilians to return to work while touting the anti-malaria drug chloroquine, unproven against the coronavirus. The President has also openly sparred with governors who implemented quarantines, saying the economic toll of the crisis will be worse than the disease. The pressure to reopen the economy has made local governments ease restrictions in the past few weeks even as cases continue to grow.
In an emailed response to questions, Johns Hopkins press department said the country was removed from the univeristy’s dashboard because it had temporarily suspended its official Covid-19 website.
“Until this data becomes available again, we are propagating the last official data point we have. As data becomes available, we will correct the historical data points.”
The country was back on the global dashboard on Saturday evening. The latest data show Brazil had 35,930 deaths and 672,846 Covid infections, according to government data. It ranks third in the world in death toll, trailing the U.S. and the U.K., and is second only to the U.S. in number of cases.
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