The Washington Post is reporting that a timeline in former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ new book reports that Donald Trump contracted COVID-19 earlier than originally admitted, probably at the September 26, 2020 “super-spreader” event announcing Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court. A second test was inconclusive, which Trump used as an excuse to attend other maskless events. Trump wasn’t tested for the September 29 debate with Joe Biden because he arrived “too late,” according to Fox News moderator Chris Wallace; this was probably deliberate to avoid a likely positive test. At least a dozen people, some of them Trump administration officials as well as Melania Trump, tested positive after close contact with him. A more a stringent PCR test confirmed the original “diagnosis,” and Trump—having hoped that it would “go away”—became so sick he had to be airlifted to a hospital and receive treatment that cost taxpayers $650,000.
One wonders when the COVID-19 pandemic will ever end, and the fact is that the virus is likely here to stay, thanks to whoever is responsible for its upbringing (China). Europe is said to be experiencing an unexpectedly large “fifth wave,” the U.S. has seen a “spike” in the last few weeks that Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz think is no big deal, while India claims to have its lowest daily totals in months (right). Allegedly originating from South Africa is the Omicron variant, which some scientists warn is 500 times more infectious than the Delta variant, which was already 60 times more infectious than the original strain; others, however, insist that we shouldn’t panic (yet) over the new strain, and it is not yet clear how, even with its collection of mutations, it will “compete” with other strains, or what level of sickness it is capable of.
According to Worldometer’s numbers, Europe has nine of the top ten countries in the world whose "official" numbers would have them with the highest coronavirus death rates. Bulgaria, which currently has the highest death rate in Europe, predictably has the lowest vaccination rate as well. Since “the West” is supposed to have “smarter” people than the rest of the world, the people in those countries have fewer excuses than other parts of the world which do not have access to adequate medical facilities or PPE.
Africa and Latin America are such places, but they have tended to be off the radar screen in regard to the pandemic, so people need to be aware of what is going on in those places. There was a time when people claimed that Africa had some kind of natural “immunity” from the coronavirus because of its low reported numbers, but this was a myth created by low testing and a desire to ignore what was really happening. It was reported that the WHO’s target for every country to have at least 10 percent (a very low bar for certain) of their population vaccinated by September was missed by 50 countries, most of them in Africa. Half the countries in Africa have 2 percent or less vaccinated, while Burundi and Eritrea do not even have a vaccination program.
Thus if it isn’t a surprise that a new, more infectious variant is spreading in Africa, then what is happening in Peru, which currently has the highest coronavirus death rate in the world? NPR reported that a combination of isolation, lack of information, and a shocking dearth of hospital capacity is to blame. In the state of Loreto there was only 12 ICU beds for a population of 900,000—seven of them in one hospital in the capital city of Iquitos, population 400,000. Because of the lack of capacity, by May 2020 new patients were already forced to lay on Army cots or even on cardboard on the floor. The lack of oxygen tanks, or the ability to fill them, continues to be a major handicap; the lowest vaccination rate of any region in Peru shouldn’t be a surprise either, given that many residents only recently became aware of even the existence of the virus.
Peru doesn’t produce its own PPE, so it has to compete both with its neighbors and wealthier countries around the world for supplies. In states like Loreto, which is the largest in Peru but is mostly comprised of rain forest, the mostly Indigenous population is more isolated than most. In fact, despite its size Iquitos is hampered by one surprising fact: it is not accessible by road, only by river or air. As reported by Reuters a month ago, the area is so isolated that many were just hearing about COVID for the first time in October, when health care workers arrived in villages like Mangual, which has no electricity and “connection with the outside world is minimal”; the dissemination of information about the pandemic is also hampered by existence of dozens of local languages “developed in isolation over the centuries.”
Whatever one may call the Peruvian government’s failure to address the pandemic in isolated Indigenous communities, there is one word that many are using in Brazil in regard to the policies of its current president, the far-right “populist” Jair Bolsonaro: genocide. Bolsonaro’s policies toward the “mitigation” of the pandemic generally can be summed up as anti-science and to largely ignore its existence, allowing “herd immunity” to take care of it. According to Worldometer’s numbers, Brazil’s death rate is unusually high for a country with a large population; if India’s death rate is actually ten times what is being “officially” reported, Brazil would still have a higher death rate.
But what is most “unusual” about Brazil’s numbers is the shockingly low test rate, only 63 million tests for a country with a population of over 214 million. More than one-third of tests are positive, which suggests that tests are only given if a patient appears to be seriously symptomatic. Out of those who test positive, Brazil has twice the death rate the U.S. does; but because of the low testing rate in Brazil—especially in Indigenous reservations—it is likely higher than that.
In those Indigenous reservations in the Amazon Rain Forest, Bolsonaro has allowed illegal mining and massive deforestation. Although a recent Brazilian Senate investigation declined to use the word “genocide” to describe Bolsonaro’s actions, it did accuse him of commanding “an anti-Indigenous policy that deliberately exposed the native people to neglect, harassment, invasion, and violence since before the pandemic.” He was also accused of deliberately exposing Indigenous people to the full brunt of COVID-19: “There is no disguise sufficient to cover up the president’s avowed willingness to target the Indigenous people. The hate speech and constant harassment reveal the hostile zeal against the Indigenous people, driven by greed and intolerance.” These beliefs certainly would give “comfort” to people like Trump, Stephen Miller and Laura Ingraham.
Bolsonaro has ignored court orders to expel the illegal miners, who are also accused of destruction of wildlife habitat and fisheries that the Indigenous people need for their survival, as well as the exacerbating the spread of COVID-19 among the Indigenous. But it isn’t just his behavior toward Indigenous people that has aroused anger. His bigoted beliefs naturally remind one of another “president,” and like him Bolsonaro has cultivated a “cult of personality” which attracts an extremist, ignorant legion of supporters. Some of these are “bikers”—Bolsonaro being a motorcycle enthusiast—although there are “leftist” biker groups in Brazil who are appalled that Bolsonaro is exploiting “biker culture” for anti-democratic and fascist designs.
In an interview on NPR, Cesar Munoz of Human Rights Watch notes that Bolsonaro is taking another page out of Trump’s playbook. “Bolsonaro is enlisting a gigantic army of like-minded people”—meaning thugs and insurrectionists—who will help him threaten and “pick fights” with the national legislature, the courts and the media. Like Trump, he is ready to allege voter “fraud” if next year’s presidential election doesn’t go his way, which seems likely given his low approval rating, which according to Statistica currently stands at 22 percent. That likelihood of defeat has Bolsonaro threatening to cancel the election unless “changes” are made in the vote-counting machinery—meaning making it easier for him to commit election fraud and voter suppression.
What happens next year in Brazil’s elections could influence Trump’s actions in 2024. If Bolsonaro illegally attempts to prevent the holding of, or invalidates, a constitutionally-mandated election simply because he will not or didn’t win, it could be a “guide” for someone of Trump’s megalomaniacal, narcissistic personality—and perhaps one that can even be described as borderline paranoid schizophrenic, living in an alternate universe where he is still president. Even though Trump wouldn't be camped out inside the White House, he and his insurrectionist supporters could find some way to make things "interesting."
Trump certainly influenced Bolsonaro (and certainly in a negative fashion), and Bolsonaro may return the “favor.” One can only pray that this will finally convince all but the most inhuman fanatics (a group that I would include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and their ilk among) of the evil of Trump and Trumpism.
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