Exactly one month ago, Congressman Osmar Terra — Jair Bolsonaro’s Citizenship Minister at the time — sent an audio message to Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the president’s eldest son, foretelling the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The good news is that the epidemic is already declining. The peak was reached late in March […] The epidemic is not falling, it’s plummeting. The number of new cases is going down at an astonishing pace. Two, three more weeks, and it’s over. […] It’s time to celebrate.”
When Mr. Terra prematurely called for celebrations, the coronavirus had infected 25,000 Brazilians, killing 1,500. Now,...