Re-opening for business, Santa Catarina will be Brazil’s test case

It is a haunting scene: a crowd of families, senior citizens, and children, all wearing face masks, scuttle into a shopping mall to the sound of a saxophone cover of “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?” The staff, with covered faces and protective gloves, cheer the public in with an eerie slow clap. The shopping mall in question is located in the city of Blumenau, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina — the first to effectively re-open its economy after Covid-19 isolation measures and allow shopping malls to operate. This, despite warnings that the worst phase of the pandemic in Latin America is likely to be just around the corner.

In recent weeks, the state of Santa Catarina has been one of the fiercest opponents to social isolation. Buoyed by the anti-quarantine message from President Jair Bolsonaro, the streets of Santa Catarina’s cities have seen numerous motorcades beeping their way around town in imported cars, demanding the right to re-open businesses. Jaimes Almeida Jr., the chief executive of...