The tenth installment of a blog series of 13 sharing art, articles, and abstract ideas that spark a contagious conversation.
There have been over 360,000 deaths globally from the coronavirus. The United States has one of the highest death counts at just over 100,000. The next highest death tally? Brazil. The Southern American country has an estimated 2,000 coronavirus cases per million people. The most populated country in the world, India, has confirmed 4,500 deaths from coronavirus. Shouldn’t the places with the most people be contributing to the global death count the most? Why is it that places like the United States and Brazil are being hit so hard by the pandemic while places like Denmark have less than 600 total deaths? Could it be that cultural differences account for these disparities more than healthcare access, GDP, or even local government? This week’s blog posts will be exploring how culture impacts the effects of coronavirus.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal for over three centuries. Brazil inherited a highly traditional and stratified class structure from its colonial period with deep inequality. In recent decades, the emergence of a large middle class has contributed to increase social mobility and alleviated income disparity, but the situation remains grave. Brazil ranks 54th among world countries by Gini index.
Since 2017 the culture in Brazil has shifted. Their politics have slanted more and more to the right, and the United States has become a conservative icon under the Trump administration. This self-described “conservative revolution” some may argue has contributed to some positive changes since new President Bolsonaro took office. These include a greater openness to trade, skepticism of China and reforms that shrank Brazil’s bloated state and made life easier for small businesses. In recent weeks, even as the World Health Organization called South America a “new epicenter” of COVID-19 and the overall death toll in Brazil passed 20,000, Bolsonaro supporters were sharing Twitter memes of anti-social distancing protests in places such as Michigan, and using distinctly American language about “personal liberties” to call for a return to normalcy. Brazilian media have documented how, each time Bolsonaro downplays the virus on TV, social distancing rates slip further. In a country that invests a far lower share of its gross domestic product in health care than the United States, and where people live cheek-by-jowl in places such as Rio de Janeiro, the effect has been disastrous.
In March, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced one of the strictest lockdowns in the world with hours’ notice at a time when the country had a little over 500 recorded cases. Staying indoors for 21 days would be necessary to “break the chain of infection,” he said, expressing confidence that India would “emerge victorious.” Government officials have highlighted the fact that India’s death toll remains comparatively limited, with about 4,300 deaths recorded so far and a mortality rate of 2.9 percent. In the United States, that figure is 5.9 percent.
Image form EPA
In Denmark, culture can be described by these three aspects of Danish life: simplicity, politeness, and equality. Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, took office on 27 June 2019. She belongs to a minority government consisting of the Social Democrats. It relies on parliamentary support from the Red–Green Alliance, the Socialist People’s Party, and the Social Liberal Party. This socialist mindset may be connected to the control the country has been able to have on the coronavirus. So far, 83% of people diagnosed with the virus in Denmark have recovered, according to health authorities. Of those who have died, 87% were above the age of 70. Denmark, the first country in Europe to gradually start reopening, reported no coronavirus-related deaths on Friday from the day earlier for the first time since March 13. Denmark’s total number of confirmed cases rose by 78 to 10,791 since Thursday, with the number of hospitalizations falling by 10 to 137. While the amount of deaths is Denmark is proportional to the their population, just like Brazil, the key difference between the two countries is the projected deaths. In Denmark, the death toll remained unchanged at 568. In Brazil, people are expected to die at an increased rate.
Could it be that more conservative, right-wing, capitalist societies are suffering from more coronavirus deaths? Are the individualist cultures contributing to the lack of social support in some countries? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Be sure to vist these links for more information: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/27/brazil-counts-almost-twice-as-many-daily-covid-19-deaths-as-the-us/#4a4d0de5610b
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/28/copying-us-is-leading-brazil-disaster-covid-19/
Written by Tatum Eames, Western Washington University Senior and Climate Justice Now Intern.