Building over May 2021, tens of thousands of people in hundreds of cities in Brazil have taken to the streets protesting the Brazilian State’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The protesters are a coalition of labor unions and student movements. They are demand that the vaccination program is accelerated. They also demand a return to $115 work emergency aid, against the current $30-50 aid. Protesters have also been demanding the impeachment of President Jair Bolsonaro. Protests have been mostly peaceful, but police have been reported to have used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds.
3. The COVID-19 Situation in Brazil
Brazil has had one of the highest death tolls due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Nearly 16 million people have contracted Covid-19 since the pandemic began and nearly 5 lakh people have died. Brazil ranks second only to the United States in reported deaths by Covid-19, ahead of India. The first wave of the pandemic went from March 2020 to October 2020, where nearly 1,50,000 people were reported to have died due to Covid-19. In the first wave alone, the death toll was unbearable. There have been reports of mass graves being dug in in indigenous areas as digging individual graves was not feasible.
