As this article in Valor Econômico, Brazil’s largest financial newspaper, outlines, the federal government’s delay in ordering COVID-19 vaccines has cost Brazil’s stock exchange, best known as Ibovespa, about 13,000 points, or 10%.
“The root of our problem, what affected us the most this year, was the mismanagement of the vaccination,”said Ronaldo Patah, a market strategists at UBS Wealth Management. “If the government had closed deals back there, the Ibovespa would have been near the peak, at 125,000 points, and not at 112,000 points.”
Last year, the Brazilian government rejected a proposal from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer to supply 70 million doses of vaccines. The health ministry claimed that it had taken this decision to avoid falling into a “marketing” scheme involving the vaccine producers.
Patah said that if the government had purchased the doses back in September last year, Brazil could currently be vaccinating at a rate similar to that of the United States.
Although Bolsonaro cannot be held responsible for the entire complex process of virus mutation and the development of a pandemic unprecedented in modern history, it is more than evident that his government could have contained the worsening situation through the implementation of simple measures that proved to be effective in many countries.
However, his ultra-conservative idea that the economic consequences of restrictive measures would be worse than the deaths of citizens revealed his absolute disregard for the popular classes, as well as strong structural racism.
The conviction, so far ratified by the polls, that whatever is done the majority will continue to vote for him, makes Bolsonaro feel supported in his lethal policy.
But neither the country nor the world can wait for the next election to see a change in the Brazilian government’s attitude. Only coordinated international pressure can ensure that dangerous new variants are curbed and thousands of lives are saved, not only in Brazil, but worldwide.
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