Low testing casts doubt over Covid-19 reality in Brazil

Brazilian society has largely been divided since 2015, when groups in favor and against the impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff began to clash. In 2018, the battleground switched to the presidential election: Jair Bolsonaro versus the center-left Workers’ Party. Now, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the political and social division du jour concerns whether Brazil should remain in isolation, or whether the country should go back to work.

The argument of the former is in defense of the health of the entire Brazilian population, regardless of social class. The latter, meanwhile, is led by the belief that the coronavirus spread cannot destroy the country’s economy, causing a severe recession that would lead to increased levels of unemployment and, potentially, poverty and mortality.

On the side of getting Brazilians back to work are President Jair Bolsonaro and conservative business owners. They are opposed by Congress and the vast majority of the country’s state governors. Twenty-three of Brazil’s 27 state governors have upheld broad isolation measures, dismissing the view of President Bolsonaro.

However, before any informed decisions can be made, there is a pressing need to discover the real impact of the pandemic on Brazilian society.

Over one month since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in Brazil, no one knows exactly how many people have been infected, while suspicions loom about the underreporting of cases and deaths.

There have been numerous reports of overcrowded morgues in the city of São Paulo — the epicenter of the epidemic in Brazil — while renowned medical research institution Fiocruz has reported an “explosion” of hospitalizations for respiratory problems nationwide, many of which could be undiagnosed cases of Covid-19.

A study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine raised suspicion that Brazil has registered only 12 percent...