The Covid-19 pandemic is set to wreak havoc on Latin American economies. The World Bank currently expects Brazil’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to plunge by 8 percent in 2020, while the unemployment rate hovers at around 12 percent.
Three months after the first Covid-19 cases were confirmed in Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro continues to downplay the severity of the pandemic — which he has repeatedly referred to as a “little flu.” While the federal government has been paying out a BRL 600 emergency salary for informal workers and low-income families since April, as The Brazilian Report has shown, many...