As virus surges, Brazil worries its neighbors
BUENOS AIRES — Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America’s biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.
Brazil, a continentsized country that shares borders with nearly every other nation in South America, has reported more than 70,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths, according to government figures and a tally by Johns Hopkins University — far more than any of its neighbors. The true number of deaths and infections is believed to be much higher because of limited testing.
The country’s borders remain open, there are virtually no quarantines or curfews and President Jair Bolsonaro continues to scoff at the seriousness of the disease.
The country of 211 million people surpassed China — where the virus began — in the official number of COVID19 deaths this week, prompting Bolsonaro to say: “So what?”
“I am sorry,” the farright president told journalists. “What do you want me to do?”
In Paraguay, soldiers enforcing antivirus measures have dug a shallow trench alongside the first 800 feet of the main road entering the city of Pedro Juan Caballero from the neighboring Brazilian city of Punta Pora, to prevent people from walking along the road from Brazil and disappearing into the surrounding city.
Paraguay has fewer than 250 confirmed coronavirus cases and its borders have been closed since March 24, with enforcement particularly focused on the largely open frontier with Brazil.
Argentine officials say they are particularly worried about truck traffic from Brazil, their top trading partner. In provinces bordering Brazil, Argentina is working to set up secure corridors where Brazilian drivers can access bathrooms, get food and unload products without ever coming into contact with Argentines.
“Brazil worries me a lot,” Argentine President Alberto Fernandez told local news outlets Saturday.
In Uruguay, President Luis Lacalle Pou said the spread of the virus in Brazil was setting off “warning lights” in his administration and authorities are tightening border controls in several frontier cities.