It has been two months since Brazil’s Health Ministry announced that it would lift the state of health emergency that had been implemented in 2020 due to Covid. For public health experts heard by The Brazilian Report, it is possible to say that the move — an electoral stunt detached from the reality of emergency rooms — has already steered the country’s pandemic outlook in the wrong direction.
Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga made a televised address announcing the end of the state of emergency on April 17. In what has become a recurring pattern within the Jair Bolsonaro administration,...