Brazil could have stopped 400,000 Covid deaths with better government response, expert says

Epidemiologist behind study on scale of disaster says Jair Bolsonaro's government is entirely' responsible

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Brazil could have saved 400,000 lives if the country had implemented stricter social distancing measures and launched a vaccination programme earlier, according to an eminent epidemiologist who is leading the first study to quantify the scale of the country's Covid disaster.

Such policies would have prevented 80% of the half a million Covid deaths registered in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, said Pedro Hallal, a professor at the Federal University of Pelotas.