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The numbers of the pandemic in Brazil are eloquent: in 55 days, the new coronavirus has already killed more than 10,000 people, according to official data from the Ministry of Health. Since the first death, on March 17, Brazilians have become accustomed to seeing death count to the rhythm of daily bulletins, in a geometric progression whose coldness empties the human dimension and trivializes the consequences of the greatest health catastrophe in a century. .
Infographic: Coronavirus numbers in Brazil and worldwide
When the country breaks the tragic mark of 10,000 deaths, O GLOBO pays tribute to the trajectories behind the numbers, in association with the Innumerable collaborative project. Through a virtual memorial dedicated to victims, the website “re-embodies” statistics based on brief reports from friends and family. A network of volunteer journalists helps restore the uniqueness of these stories.
– When we stop seeing only the numbers and discover the stories, what we feel is different. The memorial showed that there was a moderate need to mobilize to tell them, explains journalist Alana Rizzo, one of the coordinators of Innumerable, idealized by artist Edson Pavoni and social entrepreneur Rogerio Oliveira.
However, even when it comes down to numbers, the coronavirus is not just any number. Its lethality is superlative even compared to that of the tragedies that surround the collective Brazilian imagination. In less than two months, Covid-19 has already become the deadliest event since the Spanish flu in 1918.
The disease already kills more than twice the victims of one of the largest disasters in the country’s history every day in Brazil, the rupture of the Vale dam in Brumadinho (MG), which left 270 dead last year. It would take 37 such accidents, one every 35 hours, to achieve the same number of deaths as Covid-19 in those 55 days.
The crash of Air France Flight 447, between Rio and Paris, killed 228 victims in 2009. From the coronavirus perspective, it would be as if 43 planes like that had crashed, or nearly six a week in the period.
The frequent analogy with surprising battles also makes sense. Between December 1864 and March 1870, the Paraguayan War, the bloodiest in the history of the country, caused 50 thousand casualties on the Brazilian side, according to the book “Maldita Guerra: new history of the Paraguayan war”, by Francisco Doratioto . Therefore, the conflict took more than a year to reach the total number of victims in less than two months of coronavirus.
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The numbers for the Spanish flu are inaccurate, but it is estimated that the disease killed some 12,000 people in the city of Rio between October and November 1918 alone, according to the edition of “Revista Saúde” published the following year. Until now, the pandemic has been less deadly in Rio. But, given the constant growth in the daily volume of deaths and the lack of reports, it is feasible that its lethality is equivalent.
When the number of victims reaches such a proportion, the drama falls into the public domain and the mourning is limited to the private sphere. And everything in the coronavirus ruins this moment of pain.
Military police Raquel Albernaz de Freitas, 32, last saw her grandmother before she entered the Hospital da Posse in Nova Iguaçu. No visits were allowed. Deusalina Albernaz de Oliveira, 74, was mistakenly transferred to Volta Redonda and died there, eight days after admission. The family only found out that he was in another municipality when he went to release the body. The burial in Inhaúma was interrupted by the isolation rules, without a funeral, with a closed coffin and very few people saying goodbye.
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– All this leaves a great void. The feeling is that you don’t know who is there, says Raquel, who is six months pregnant and was also diagnosed with Covid-19. – To make matters worse, I really miss empathy. With so many deaths, people tend to trivialize the loss, they only become real when people close to them start to die. The political dispute about the disease only hurts.
The contradiction is that, as deaths multiply and pain trivializes, society is going through a kind of collective mourning. The diagnosis is from the American writer David Kessler, author of influential works on the subject, in an interview with the “Harvard Business Review”. Even those who have not lost anyone close to them experience the symptoms.
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– There were many losses that we had, routinely, for employment, for freedom, for friends. This generates common feelings in people who are grieving. Today I feel a bit like the time I lost my mother, observes Mariane Maciel, co-founder of the Let’s Talk About Grieving project. – There is a general malaise. The hope is that it will bring more empathy to those who have lost someone to the disease.
Let’s Talk Mourning has produced a digital brochure that reinforces the importance of parting rituals even with social distance and suggests ways to maintain them during the pandemic. Virtual memorials like Innumerable are one-way, Mariane quotes:
– The person does not disappear as long as someone remembers it.
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