MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro's supporters fared worse off throughout C19 crisis

The new paper's findings were similar to others published in The Lancet,

A local scientific study in Brazil has established that those areas where President Jair Bolsonaro had the most votes in his 2018 campaign were also the ones with higher COVID-19 mortality rates, it was reported Friday.

“Bolsonaro has denied the seriousness of Covid-19, promoted treatments without evidence of efficacy and discouraged social distancing, the use of masks, closures of premises and other protective measures,” said study co-author Carlos Starling, of the Society of Infectious Disease Specialists of Minas Gerais.

The research compared voting results in the 2018 presidential election in Minas Gerais, the country's second-most populous state (southeastern region), with Covid-19 infection and mortality rates at municipality level.

Those that voted in 2018 overwhelmingly for Bolsonaro, a pandemic skeptic, had “substantially” higher Covid-19 death rates than those who did not, the report found.

The study analyzed data from Jan. 21 to Nov. 10, 2021. Infection rates were 30% higher in municipalities where Bolsonaro won in 2018: 7,600 per 100,000 inhabitants, on average, and mortality rates, were 60% worse: 212 per 100,000 people.

Starling and bioinformatics expert Braulio Couto will present the as-yet-unpublished study this month at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Lisbon, whose selection committee reviewed their findings.

The new paper's findings were similar to others published in The Lancet, which compared the results of Brazil's 2018 elections nationwide with COVID-19 mortality rates and also concluded that municipalities that voted for Bolsonaro fared worse in the pandemic.

Bolsonaro, who will seek re-election in October, has faced criticism for his handling of the coronavirus crisis, which he called “a gripezinha” (mild flu). A Senate committee recommended last October that he be indicted on criminal charges, including crimes against humanity, for his response to the health crisis.