The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on many dimensions of Brazil’s development. This is one of the most seriously affected by COVID-19 countries not only in the Latin American region, but also in the world as a whole. Nevertheless, the policy of President Zaire Bolsonaro, who downplayed the seriousness of COVID-19, caused discontent among a significant part of citizens. Therefore, it is important to define social and economic policies during the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil.
The first case of infection with a new coronavirus infection was recorded in February in Sao Paulo. A 61–year-old man who returned from Italy turned out to be infected (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). At the same time, a second case was confirmed, also registered with a citizen who had recently arrived from the Apennine Peninsula (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). According to official data, as of May 19, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country exceeded 255 thousand (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). Nevertheless, Jair Bolsonaro continued to deny the danger and the next day, after a sharp jump, he went to a rally against measures to contain the epidemic.
Representatives of the diplomatic mission also noted that the government allocates more than 2.5 billion reais to strengthen social support. Moreover, over 20 million people were supposed to receive at least 600 reais (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). Sao Paulo Mayor Bruno Covas said after the outbreak on May 16 that the city’s hospitals were 90% full (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). According to him, in two weeks there may not be enough places if the number of patients grows at such a pace. Back on March 24, the economic center of Brazil declared quarantine (Djilali & Ghanbari, 2020, p. 138). Thus, there are disinfectants at the shops at the entrance and at the ticket offices, ads about the need for social distance are pasted everywhere. Rio de Janeiro became the second region after progressive Sao Paulo in terms of the number of infected (Giordani et al., 2022, p. 906). On May 16, at least 10 people were killed during clashes in poor areas (Giordani et al., 2022, p. 905). Thus, the state made efforts in the field of health care only for busy residents, and it was necessary to jointly help the government and the private sector to overcome the crisis for absolutely all groups of the population.
The socio-economic crisis unfolding as a result of the pandemic has prompted the Brazilian national government to expand social spending to offset the consequences of the corona crisis. Throughout 2020, it was possible to observe a noticeable increase in the number of anti-crisis social support measures, which led to a large-scale increase in social spending by the state (Giordani et al., 2022, p. 907). However, the central government of Brazil approved a fairly extensive package of social support measures, it was not about a systemic transformation of the social sphere of the state.
Despite the fact that the spread of coronavirus infection became a trigger for the aggravation of the socio-economic situation, the social policy in Brazil had already undergone a number of difficulties by this time. Thus, before the pandemic, the socio-economic situation in the country was not developing too well as a result of the crisis phenomena in 2015-2016 (Giordani et al., 2022, p. 909). One of the many symptoms of deterioration can be considered a reduction in funding for the “Bolsa Família” program, which provided social support for poor Brazilian families if they have children, as well as an accelerated increase in unemployment. The reduction of the “Bolsa Família” budget has led to a decrease in the number of beneficiaries of the program and an increase in queues for participation in it.
During the first wave of COVID-19, the Brazilian government announced its intention to take a number of measures aimed primarily at expanding assistance to those who lost their jobs. A prerequisite for this can be considered the already existing unstable situation in the labor market, the trigger for the aggravation of which was the pandemic. First, during the first wave of the pandemic, a program was launched to pay benefits to preserve employment and income in an emergency from federal reserves in case of reduced working hours and wages (Ponce, 2020, p. 485). The benefit implied the transfer of monthly payments equivalent to what the employee would receive as unemployment insurance and a wage reduction agreement.
Secondly, assistance to the poor categories of the population who found themselves in the most vulnerable position with the onset of COVID-19 was expanded. The program assumed cash payments in the amount of 600 Brazilian reais per person for three months (Ponce, 2020). The Brazilian government has announced support for low-income citizens in the form of utility benefits and suspension of disconnection from utilities due to non-payment. Thus, according to the Brazilian Ministry of Economy, as part of the country’s response to the challenges of COVID-19, events were announced on the following tracks of the social sphere: “Support for families” and “Support for employment”.
Thus, the Brazilian experience of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic remains one of the most unsuccessful, despite a series of initiatives taken to mitigate the crisis. The structural imbalances accumulated in the country risk only getting worse due to tactical support measures. Despite the expansion of social spending and easier access to existing programs, the measures proposed by the Brazilian Government are temporary and have a number of shortcomings.
References
Djilali, S., & Ghanbari, B. (2020). Coronavirus pandemic: A predictive analysis of the peak outbreak epidemic in South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 138, 109971. Web.
Giordani, R. C. F., Zanoni da Silva, M., Muhl, C., & Giolo, S. R. (2022). Fear of COVID-19 scale: Assessing fear of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil. Journal of health psychology, 27(4), 901-912. Web.
Ponce, D. (2020). The impact of coronavirus in Brazil: Politics and the Pandemic. Nature Reviews Nephrology, 16(9), 483-483. Web.