Floundering power. Brazil’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Every country on the planet is facing not only the unprecedented challenges of the novel coronavirus pandemic, but also the magnified consequences of policy decisions made by its leaderships during the preceding years. Brazil —a country of continental proportions that, not long ago, was widely considered to be a rising power on the global stage— is clearly floundering in its response to the spread of the virus. This results from an accumulation of errors —some of them dating back decades, but most accelerated under the right-wing government of Jair Bolsonaro.