In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, access to accurate data is vital. From controlling local infection clusters, through plans to close or reopen businesses at the municipal level, to integrated national policies to combat the pandemic, nothing is done without available and reliable data. And yet Brazil’s federal government has not only tampered with its official case counts — with alarming results in the face of the accelerated growth of recorded cases and deaths — but has also downplayed the gravity of the pandemic while promoting pseudo-science and false cures.

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has even declared that the illness was nothing more than a “little flu” ­– and refused to follow World Health Organization recommendations on social isolation. Cracks didn’t take long to appear between the president and his Health Minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who resigned on 16 April due to disagreements with the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Full article at Covid Action Network’s website. Date of publication: 03/11/2020.