First impressions in the first days of COVID-19 in Brazil, Andreza de Souza Santos
Where are you coming from, asked the saleswomen from a shop already in São Paulo at a safe distance. I said I was coming from London and asked her, “aren’t you afraid to talk to me, I don’t mind looking around on my own.” She said that she came to work in a bus that was incredibly full. Her hand was at all times close to her mouth, as she had to stand and hold to the upper iron bar in the bus. Her hand was also close to the hands of other people, as was her body. She said that speaking to me with over a meter distance is the least scary part of her job and without me asking, she continued: “My kid does not have classes anymore; since yesterday (Monday 16/03), I cannot send him to school. I have a person taking care of him, and I need my job to pay that person and that person needs that money to feed her family.” I asked if she thought the shop could shut down in the next days. “I was not told anything yet; do you think this can happen? Why would being here be more dangerous than being in the supermarket, which was packed yesterday and had no more hand sanitizer?”, she continued, “My kid will not have classes from the second half of March until the end of April. It is too much time. The prefecture is still keeping the schools open for kids in vulnerability, who don’t have food at home, perhaps soon there will be more of those kids if they close down everything”.
The food court was no different. While I waited for my coffee, I heard the manager say: “I already closed the bar, now there is only one table consuming, what can we do?” Later, however, that cafe gained more clients, while the airport remained relatively empty. The waiters kept spraying alcohol on the empty tables, a new way to attract clients by signalling cleanliness.
Arriving in Brazil amid the first days of the pandemic was a mixture of hope and hopelessness. The hope came from the fact that in the majority of Brazilian cities, distancing measures occurred even before any confirmed cases. However, hopelessness was also there and inequality in Brazil showed its face like never before. Fear of contamination went hand-in-hand with the imminent danger of poverty. Essential workers travelling to work in crowded buses was a reality that continued in Brazil despite the pandemic, as fewer people moving in the city was accompanied by a reduction in public transportation offer, hardly reducing crowded experiences in many Brazilian cities. In addition, the inability to use distance learning in the absence of internet and computer access is the reality of millions of Brazilian students, for whom staying home has also never meant being safe. The results of what this first impression from my arrival in Brazil in mid-March already showed became concrete now, as I revisit these notes in June 2020. Distancing measures slowed the spread of COVID-19 in Brazil but did not impede its destructive growth. Inequality in mobility, income, access to health care and testing shifted the pattern of contamination from wealthy travellers to poor Brazilians. On top of that, misinformation and lack of information that started with “do you know if the shop where I work will close?” never ended. Federalism in Brazil has never been as visible as now, when governors and mayors took decisions that at times went against presidential decrees. The confusion on what one can and cannot do are part of the routine of a country that has to assimilate not only fake news but also contradictory information from different political leaders. Inequality in information, income, health and health care are translated into deaths and contamination numbers, both on a crescendo in Brazil.
Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, University of Oxford