Exploring the correlation between votes for Bolsonaro and deaths by Covid-19 in Brazil, 2018-2022 (original) (raw)
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Quantifying political influence on COVID-19 fatality in Brazil
The COVID-19 pandemic was severely aggravated in Brazil due to its politicization by the country’s central government. However, the impact of diffuse political forces on the fatality of an epidemic is commonly hard to quantify. Here we introduce a method to measure this effect in the Brazilian case, based on the inhomogeneous distribution throughout the national territory of political support to the central government. The correlation between fatality rate and political support grows as the government’s misinformation campaign is developed, leading to the dominance of such political factor for the pandemic impact in Brazil in 2021. Once this dominance is established, this correlation allows for an estimation of the total number of deaths due to political influence as 350 ± 70 thousands up to the end of 2021.
Rev. adm. pública (Online), 2020
Humanity has always been tormented with the end of existence. On some occasions, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, this affliction is pronounced. To what extent can fear of death alter individuals' political perceptions and beliefs? It is in this context of uncertainties and fears that we investigate how Brazilian society has been evaluating its leaders, especially concerning the policy of social distancing. The COVID-19 pandemic changed the axes of political polarization. On the one hand, governors, mayors, and legislators are concerned about the risks of a collapse of the health system. On the other, President Jair Bolsonaro focused primarily on the negative economic consequences of the pandemic. Through an opinion poll, we identified that "fear of death" diminished the ideological polarization that has existed in Brazil since Jair Bolsonaro's election. Contrary to what many expected, voters who identified themselves as right-wing and center-right-supposedly, the core of Bolsonaro's voters-refused to follow the president's recommendation of relaxing social distancing policies and considered his performance inappropriate during the pandemic. We also show that different income levels did not influence this change in behavior.
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