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Fernández and Bolsonaro: two views on the same virus

2020-03-26T17:51:58.566Z


The strategic differences between Argentina and Brazil against the pandemic are evidence of the dilemma between protecting health or the economy.


Last Friday, at zero hours, Argentina went out. Almost everyone locked themselves in their houses. In the blink of an eye, we Argentines began to experience these implausible images that came to us from Milan or Paris: we lived in cities, some of them gigantic, that seemed abandoned. A couple of hours earlier, President Alberto Fernández had announced his decision to impose what he called Mandatory Preventive Social Isolation.

Fernández's decision was one of the most premature on the planet. Italy was quarantined on March 9 with more than 400 fatalities, Spain on 14 with 120, and France on 17 with 148. When the plan was launched in Argentina on March 20, only two people had died. by coronavirus, and little more than one hundred had been infected, according to official records. At the time of closing this note, only nine people lost their lives to the virus that is a star on the planet. The country is waiting for a biological attack, which may or may not be very serious.

During the same days, on the other side of the border, in the gigantic Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro applied the exact opposite strategy to that of Fernández: that is, do nothing, or almost nothing. Bolsonaro has waged an intense and aggressive campaign against the restrictive measures. As the borders of the western world closed, the police and gendarmes began patrolling the streets of democracies so that no one walked around and the economies slowed down, Bolsonaro hugged his supporters in demonstrations and celebrated his birthday party with dozens of friends for two consecutive days.

-This is hysteria. Some people are going to die. But we are not going to stop the economy, said the Brazilian.

On Monday, the influential company Datafolha released a survey according to which 73% of Brazilians asked for extreme measures. A journalist asked Bolsonaro for that. The Brazilian president was enraged: "The dose of the remedy cannot be excessive so that the collateral effect is more damaging than the virus itself. The press is very important to divulge truths. But his question is unpatriotic. It goes against the interests of the Brazil. It is a question, excuse me, infamous. Accused me, if you want, of attacking the press. "

Then he stated: "We should not bring panic to society. Because panic is also a more serious disease than the virus. We cannot bring this feeling to the population. Especially those who live from informality. Those people cannot live any longer. four or five days without sustenance. Informality and people with panic or depression are the most likely to lose their lives due to the virus. We have no way of avoiding deaths. " He also asked that schools be reopened as soon as possible.

The strong contrast between Fernández and Bolsonaro replicates a debate that has been taking place in the world since the crisis erupted. Almost all the world political leadership resisted taking the measures that are now being taken, due to the damage that this would do to the economy. Much more sophisticated personalities than Bolsonaro argued that, although the virus caused deaths, a violent stop to production could be even more lethal. The leaders who took this proposal further in time were Donald Trump and Boris Johnson. When the death toll began to climb in the UK and surpassed the number of 300, Johnson fell back. Trump, cornered by the 10,000 new cases that Washington recognizes per day, still weaves. Bolsonaro does not move a millimeter.

That same debate took place in the Argentine government, which also wavered during the month of February. But Fernández surrounded himself with the most prestigious virologists and infectologists who collected alarmed data from the north of Italy. The same day that the American epidemiologist Anthony Fauci told Congress that there could be millions of infected or dead, Fernández made the decision to go deep: sacrifice the economic future to prevent the virus from spreading.

It is difficult to know, at this point, who is right of both. Surely, if the Spanish or Italian political leadership could go back in time, it would anticipate quarantines and isolation. At this point, Argentina has received very controlled damage. In Brazil, 59 people have died so far: it is the highest number in the entire southern hemisphere, by far from the second but, at the same time, insignificant among a country of 200 million inhabitants.

Brazil and Argentina have something in their favor: they are far away. It seems too simple a reasoning but it has forceful effects. On the one hand, because they were able to observe what was happening in other countries before the epidemic arrived. On the other hand, because distance is a factor minimized by the analysis of the evolution of the pandemic: if Rome, which is so well connected with Milan, has not yet suffered significant damage, it may happen that they do not occur in Buenos Aires or in Rio either. . But, at the same time, the health systems of Brazil and Argentina, without being the worst in the world, are far from the levels of Berlin or Amsterdam: both countries, to some extent, will pay for their precariousness.

Amid the anguish, Fernández preferred to listen to the scientists and Bolsonaro to the economists. "Between life and the economy, I choose life," said the Argentine. "They ask me to close the churches. How am I going to do that? It is the last refuge for human beings. Pastors know how to guide people," the Brazilian said.

Hopefully it is not as wrong as it seems, because in that case Brazil will suffer something similar to a holocaust. This story is just beginning.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-03-26

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