Explaining Brazil #104: Do the numbers even mean anything?

Photo: Chokniti Khongchum/Shutterstock

Every day, members of the Health Ministry gather for a press conference to provide daily updates on coronavirus cases around the country. According to the latest briefing at the time of recording, Brazil had confirmed over 25,000 infections and over 1,500 deaths, with a lethality rate of 6.1 percent.

But despite these official numbers being used by the mainstream press all over the world, they don’t tell us much about the path of the virus in the country. In fact — no one really knows how many people have been infected by the coronavirus, nor how many have actually died of Covid-19, which makes any projection for the future little more than an educated guess.

That is a major problem for Latin America’s largest country, because — to overcome the crisis, we first need to know what exactly we are facing.

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Background reading:

The Brazilian Report has launched a live blog to follow the spread of Covid-19 in Brazil. It will be used to provide public-interest information on a daily basis about the developments of the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil. If you have doubts about the issue, do not hesitate to write to us at hello@brazilian.report.
Low testing numbers are hiding the true number of infections in Brazil — and the real figures could be up to 15 times higher.
Jair Bolsonaro has reportedly decided to fire Health Ministry Luiz Henrique Mandetta — this time for good. Brenno Grillo wrote a profile on the minister.
Last week, the Health Ministry launched a plan to relax social isolation measures in states and cities where the healthcare system is not overburdened, starting on April 13. We explain why that is a bad idea.
The coronavirus has drastically upended Brazil’s 2020 municipal elections — and no one at this time can tell for sure how, and if, this vote will be able to take place.
Economists working under the federal government told reporter Brenno Grillo that Bolsa Família is the answer to Covid-19. But, as Euan Marshall showed early in March, the Jair Bolsonaro administration has slashed it.
In our March 18 Daily Briefing, economist Daniel Duque makes a case for a universal basic income policy as a palliative measure for the looming crisis (for premium subscribers).

Explaining Brazil is made by:

Gustavo Ribeiro, editor in chief of The Brazilian Report. He has extensive experience covering Brazilian politics. His work has been featured across Brazilian and French media outlets, including Veja, Época, Folha de S.Paulo, Médiapart, and Radio France Internationale.
Euan Marshall, editing. Euan is a journalist and translator who has lived in São Paulo, Brazil since 2011. Specializing in Brazilian soccer, politics and the connection between the two, his work has been published in The Telegraph, Al Jazeera, The Independent, among others.

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