COVID-19 in Brazil: exploring economical and social dynamics

ABSTRACT

The outbreak of COVID-19 has spread rapidly worldwide and was triggered on December 31, 2019 in Wuhan, China. From an epidemic stage, it was soon characterized as a pandemic by the WHO. Consequently, it signaled impacts on public health and economic systems. By raising several researches on the disease and its short, medium and long term consequences, this study explores the dynamics of COVID-19 and its socioeconomic reflexes globally, especially the impacts in Brazil, discussing the emergency political arrangements resulting from the pandemic-including the contagion suppression measures- to stimulate future research agendas. Based on a variety of literature, covering several countries and Brazil, the deductive method was used to problematize the factual evidence found, enabling the understanding of economic and social factors underlying this crisis. It faced the need for coordinated and integrated actions at various levels-corporate, community and, in particular, governmental-. It appears that it is still premature to indicate whether coping with the disease will have immediate effects;however, it was evidenced that large economies have been adopting macroeconomic strategies, making the expansion of their currencies more flexible and encouraging the growth by virtual currencies. On the other hand, the uncoordinated actions, especially those of countries in emerging conditions and with a predominant economic base in commodities and highly vulnerable public accounts, as in the case of Brazil, require further investigations regarding future impacts.