How an outbreak happens in a continental country such as Brazil

Since the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, The Brazilian Report has explained the impacts of the virus on Brazil, whether in the economy, politics, or society. As of Friday evening, the country has almost 18,000 confirmed cases and 941 deaths. That the country’s health system is unable to serve a large contingent of people, whether public or private, is hardly news for Brazilians. In fact, it was the private sector that first felt the effects of Covid-19’s rapid transmission, as the virus arrived in Brazil from the well-traveled elite and middle class.

A survey by newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo showed that the majority of cases of Covid-19 in the city of São Paulo are reported in the expanded city center, where the cost of living is much higher than in peripheral neighborhoods. In Rio de Janeiro, the first recorded death was a 60-year-old housekeeper who had caught the virus from her employer, who had just returned from a trip to Italy.

This top-down transmission is a result of Brazilian social inequality, which...