Worst Case Scenario

Cash-strapped, dysfunctional, and led by a chloroquine-obsessed populist, Brazil may be the pandemic's perfect strom

- By Julia Leite, Simone Iglesias, Martha Beck, and Ethan Bronner

On a recent afternoon in São Luís, the capital of Maranhão state in northeastern Brazil, Hosana Lima Castro sat on a flimsy plastic chair in front of her house as stray dogs sniffed potholes in the narrow street and a few neighborhood kids launched kites. The bar across the way, where a few months ago an acquaintance of Castro’s had been shot, was closed because of the pandemic. Her job at a convenience store had disappeared, too, so Castro, who’s 43 and shares her modest home with her father, two brothers, and two of her kids, had nowhere else to be. Although the coronavirus is widespread across Brazil’s northeast, she wasn’t wearing a mask. Nor was anyone else in her crowded neighborhood, where basic services have been so neglected that many residents have no access to clean water.

Castro’s brother Moises, a garbage collector, was the first in her family to get sick. Then her other brother, Luciano, did too, followed by their father, Francisco, who has diabetes. He suffered badly, struggling to breathe and running a soaring fever. But no one in Castro’s household went to the hospital—a place that some in São Luís believe makes patients sicker, or worse. “That would be a death sentence,” she said.