Coronavirus in South America: How it became a class issue

BBC News ^ | March 25, 2020 | By Katy Watson

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Brazil got its first case of coronavirus just after carnival. The man, who had visited Italy, returned with symptoms and went straight to Albert Einstein hospital, a world-class institution in the southern hemisphere's biggest city, São Paulo.

In the beginning, many of the cases followed a similar pattern, affecting Brazilians who can afford to travel abroad and pay for treatment in private hospitals.

And it is a pattern that is replicated across the region too. The first case in Ecuador was somebody returning from Spain. In Uruguay, media reported last week that half of the country's coronavirus cases could be traced back to a single guest at a glamorous party who had just come back from Spain.

The speed of transmission is something that worries medics here, who fear the public health system will not be able to cope.

"The social class who is ill at the moment are the upper-middle and upper classes, and that's why we haven't yet seen a sustained transmission rate," says Dr Beatriz Perondi.

In a country where 40% of the workforce is estimated to work in the informal economy, millions of poor people are going to bear the brunt of coronavirus.

The government has introduced emergency measures. Informal workers will each receive 200 reais a month ($40). But Brazil's currency is plummeting each and every day. It is not enough to buy food for a month for a family, let alone cover rent and bills. This is a menacing virus, but just as menacing is the threat of hunger.

As the health minister here said last week, we are at the foot of the mountain and we are about to start climbing it. But the route to the top will be far harder for some in this, the most unequal region in the world.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Once the virus hits the favelas there’s no stopping it. Even the police are afraid to go there.

[FenwickBabbitt]

So far the virus has effected lighter skinned peoples far, far more than darker skinned folks worldwide. Brazil’s upper classes are much whiter than the average for the country. I wonder if that could also have something to do with it or if those sort of differences are just happenstance. Perhaps it has something to do with blood type differences the Chinese have been studying in regard to the virus or something to do with melanin. Or maybe they’re right and whites and East Asians are just more likely to travel internationally.

[SkyPilot]

The upper classes in those nations travel by air.

That's why they got it.

[txrefugee]

Half of the cases in the USA would not exist if it weren’t for NYC. If you want to be totally safe from epidemics, no one should travel.

[kearnyirish2]

“Or maybe they’re right and whites and East Asians are just more likely to travel internationally.”

I suspect that is the key, and also why some of our politicians and celebs have it.

[Jewbacca]

And they travel, period.

[FenwickBabbitt]

Maybe I should have explained what I was referrencing. There was a Chinese study that showed people were far more likely to get the disease if they had A+ blood type which is most common among ethnic European groups and less common among most ethnic African populations (for example, 40% of American whites have A+ blood, while only 27% of American blacks do). It was a legitimate study of 2,100 people confirmed to have COVID-19, but of couse even studies can be wrong sometimes.

If it is correct, however, it would be entirely expected for there to be different rates of infection among different groups of people even at the same level of exposure. That’s all I was talking about (and a speculative article that had been posted to Free Republic on melanin as a protective anti-oxidant). We’ll probably see soon enough, but it seems a little early to say the very different infection and death rates so far are solely due to travel, although they certainly could be.

[SkyPilot]

Thanks