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Brazil has become South America’s superspreader event

36 points| pelagicAustral | 5 years ago |washingtonpost.com | reply

24 comments

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[+] fasteddie31003|5 years ago|reply
A little off topic. Why is it not politically correct to name new pathogens (COVID-19) after country of origin, but's fine to name variants by country of origin?
[+] anonymouswacker|5 years ago|reply
Latin American countries have less influence than China.
[+] choward|5 years ago|reply
I've seen articles saying we should treat the B117 (UK) variant as a new virus. Shouldn't we just call it UK virus if it's a new virus?

I'm not actually serious. I think naming viruses/variants after places is a mistake to begin with since it's hard to prove where they originate. Also it discourages finding new viruses since you don't want your home country's name to be used in naming it.

Nobody knows where the Spanish flu came from. It's just that they were the first ones who paid attention to it since they weren't fighting in WWI.

[+] js2|5 years ago|reply
This article exclusively refers to it as the P.1 variant.
[+] frongpik|5 years ago|reply
Because China, unlike South America, has power over others.
[+] Synaesthesia|5 years ago|reply
China contained the virus it was in Europe and America’s that it blew up.
[+] dyingkneepad|5 years ago|reply
I tried to explain the Brazilian situation previously, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26649811
[+] tiltrus|5 years ago|reply
I agree with all your points. Being a gringo now for awhile in this country -- this hits the nail on the head in my experience. Beautiful country though -- it's hard to leave life on the Praia here for something else.
[+] data_spy|5 years ago|reply
Anyone else find that protest picture ironic?
[+] cooldevguy|5 years ago|reply
> “We did not expect such a strong second wave,”

I don't think the world was ever out of the first wave for starters

[+] Synaesthesia|5 years ago|reply
Brazil certainly didn’t. I don’t know many European and Middle Eastern countries had cases fall dramatically. South Africa too.
[+] riffraff|5 years ago|reply
I'm surprised the article doesn't manage to discuss how brazil's leadership messed up big time by insisting in treating this like a flu.

Also, Chile has a ton of vaccines, but they are not the same distribution as, say, the US or the UK: there seem to be a ton of Sinovac, and I'm not sure it's as effective as some other vaccines at stopping by transmission or hospitalizations.

[+] germinalphrase|5 years ago|reply
Terrence McCoy’s other writing for the Post does make this argument at length.
[+] BikiniPrince|5 years ago|reply
Third world medicine at its best!

Too don’t hear India whining, but they bought into hydroxychlorine fairly early. Hell, they even supply it to several countries. At least they didn’t turn down medicine because it was highly politicized.

Brazil and Venezuela probably can’t stop you from dying after an infection in the toe. Not sure why they are going to do for anything else.

[+] SwiftyBug|5 years ago|reply
Brazil has one of the most effective public health systems in the world. Specially considering the country's size. It's not perfect, but it's very, very, far from letting anyone die from an infection in the toe.
[+] rmsaksida|5 years ago|reply
I can't speak for Venezuela, but you are entirely wrong about Brazil.