The same sort of abdication of responsibility occurs when nearby farmers outside the city burn the forest to create pastureland for cattle. Despite the increase in hospital admissions, especially of children, resulting from respiratory problems caused by the smoke, the official position is that the wildfires are inevitable because of “development.” This is technically correct: without the fires, there would be no cattle to export, and without cattle, the ranch owners wouldn’t have enough money to donate to the politicians (or to keep for themselves, because many of the ranch owners are politicians).
And now, with the arrival of COVID-19, we are seeing a similar pattern. By late July, there were more than 800 deaths from the coronavirus in Rondônia. But COVID-19 has become an ideological issue, not just a public health problem. Whether or not people wear protective masks or practice self-isolation depends on whether they support President Jair Bolsonaro, who has consistently downplayed the dangers of the pandemic. The official line is that the economic disruption that would result from aggressive measures against the disease would take more lives than the virus itself. (Bolsonaro tested positive himself recently, although according to an official statement he remained in good condition.)
In short, the poorest people are the sickest. We may understand these data in two ways. The first interpretation, advanced by public administrators at the state level, is that it’s their own fault that the poorest people are seeing the most illness. But poor housing, malnutrition and lack of formal employment are clearly not their fault. These conditions mean that the poor are unable to isolate themselves socially, wash their hands or buy protective masks. They have little access to public health resources and social assistance.
The challenge becomes to understand the structural factors that maintain these inequalities and their consequences for people’s health, and to begin to remedy them. Only then will these communities no longer have to choose between working and putting themselves and their families at risk on one hand, versus self-isolating and starving.
