Brazil’s Covid-19 chaos the elephant in the room ahead of Mercosur summit

Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay will attend this year’s first Mercosur summit on Friday, marking the 30th anniversary of the Treaty of Asunción, which established the common market between Southern Cone nations. A series of post-pandemic economic matters are on the agenda, but there will be a huge yellow-and-green elephant in the room.

Over the last month, the catastrophic Covid-19 situation in Brazil has plastered front pages of newspapers across the continent.

Headlines described bodies being stored on hospital floors in Brasília, intensive care units overflowing with patients, and drastic shortages of critical medical supplies. 

The world recorded 10,314 new coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, according to real-time Covid-19 ticker Worldometer. Over 30 percent of them were in Brazil. Earlier in March, the front page of major Argentinian newspaper Clarín declared that “Brazil is a threat to humanity.”

Speaking to the Argentinian daily, epidemiologist Jesem Orellana called Brazil an “open-air laboratory” for the coronavirus, as the Brazilian coronavirus variant spreads unchecked...