Brazil has changed its tack under bolsonaro. He has been astoundingly derogatory about the indigenous Brazilian people ( indeed the way he talks you would only think he wanted the rule for the Descendants of European settlers) and this has been shown by his increasing support and push for invasion of their lands either forgiveness afterwards or promises beforehand that nothing will happen.
Why is this of issue now? The first cases of covid-19 have been reported in the last few days of members of tribes falling ill. However if indigenous people need to to pull back from contact with the outside world to survive it will leave a space for the invaders to take over their land in increasing numbers.
The first case was a 20 year old woman from the Kokama tribe which live in the district of Santo Antonio do Içá. This lies about 550 miles up the Amazon river from the state capital Manaus. Indigenous people generally live are more communal life which means that when an infection gets into the community it’s like you can have have more of an impact than it would in the West.
Should be noted that bolsonaro has a similar attitude towards knowledge that trump has. Anyone who contradicts regardless of whether they have more knowledge than him is a bad thing, and he has has attacked the Brazilian health minister for contradicting false information he had given.
If bolsonaro’s impact on Brazil’s fight of covid-19 is similar to Donald Trump’s in the USA, Brazil could follow in its footsteps and end up with hundreds of thousands of cases. However with a far less capable health system death rates would likely to be significantly higher than they were in the America or the EU.
