Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
Vaccination and dangers ahead
05
Apr
Official data from the On Data in World (in graphic) website 
indicate a total vaccination in Brazil of 10.2 million people up to 3 days ago, while the world average is at the level of 6.5% and in countries like France, Italy and Germany they are inexplicable. rate close to 11% (even the WHO complained).
Only Israel close to 60% and the United Kingdom close to 50% have acceptable rates, in Latin America only Chile reached 30% and Uruguay to 20%, but it should be noted that Chile has a much smaller population of 18 million (less than the city of São Paulo), and Uruguay 3.5 million (slightly larger than Belo Horizonte if counting the cities Betim, Contagem that are neighboring), Brazil is close to 10% counting the first dose according to data from the same site (on Data in World ).
Two dangers strongly threaten the contamination rates: the new strain that spreads more quickly and the cold that should arrive soon, according to experts from Butantã in Sao Paulo, it is not possible to speed up the vaccine production process, but on the other hand, FioCruz in Rio de Janeiro promises to deliver 1 million daily doses, would arrive at the end of April with at least 40 million vaccinated with the first dose (this would be close to 20% of the population), and hope that the cold will delay, not counting the shipments that will come from the abroad and Butantã itself.
Fortunately the weather has been hot, despite cold fronts threatening in the south, the expectation for the next 15 days (until April 20, therefore), is to stay warm. although it is rainy, but there is no correct weather data, the forecasts are not always right.
It is hoped that a vaccination will be able to stop the successive increase of infections, we have broken several records of infection and deaths, and the aggressiveness of the new strain acts in these two aspects.
An innovative drug is announced on the market, and filed the order on Anvisa on March 30, it is a combination of monoclonal antibodies bamlanivimab and etesevimab that was developed by the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and can help in mild cases and people who have respiratory problems , is the first drug really valid in prevention and in mild cases that have respiratory comorbidities, it can reach the market in 30 days.
This medicine has a powerful asset, since it has already been released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the drug regulator in the USA, in short it is necessary to think of creative solutions and preventive measures cannot be ruled out, of course they are really valid.
Criticism of inadequate reason
30
Mar
Western philosophy lives in an inadequate reason, it cannot be
rational to ignore the pain, death and inclement weather of nature and life, life is death and resurrection and without understanding one does not understand the other, in the middle of a pandemic it is observed that not even religious understood this.
In Western philosophy, idealism and its dualistic logic predominate, so pain and happiness complement each other, that is why so much sadism is possible with one’s own body, with human relationships, although now there is a great appeal to empathy, we have already discussed the “third party included ”Of quantum physics and the logic of going beyond me-you.
Epicurus submitted the pain to the tetrapharmakon, the idea that to deny it would be useless so it is to seek the best way to live with it, it is the neurotic terrain of right and wrong, of good and evil, to reach a philosophical plain populated as I would say Espinosa, good and bad encounters.
Epicurus’ first two remedies refer to the intellect, proper to idealism, to undo all the irrational superstitions and fears that cause anguish in men, the death and anger of the gods, that is why the litany God is good, he is , but incompatible with evil and this does not mean the absence of pain, but its transposition to a greater good.
The last two remedies are a hedonistic “ethics”, it deals with the preventive characters of pain and the obtaining of pleasure, they also do not admit pain with a contingency of life, and not everything is inevitable, for example death, and so it remains improper reason.
Camus also addressed the issue, and we had the opportunity to make a post about the Myth of Sisyphus, and his starting point is to find happiness where it is possible in dark times (wars).
If we admit the pain, and go through it, we will find a third go-beyond or think towards the beyond, suggested by Emmanuel Lévinas, which means to move more and more towards the stranger, the mystery and the infinite (another Lévinas theme) and we have already mentioned here the Cosmos and Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of a Christian worldview.
We entered Easter week and with it in the Christian worldview, the sacrifice of Christ replaces the sacrifice of the lamb made by Abraham (in the three great monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity), so the pain enters a new meaning from of which afterlife is possible.
It is serious, but there can be hope
29
Mar
While Europe is experiencing the 3rd. wave, the number of infected
and the severity of the disease makes the pandemic a humanitarian crisis in Brazil, the hope is to increase the rate of vaccination.
In Europe, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen recognizes that the bloc of the 27 member countries “is not where it wanted” with immunization, and said that efforts should accelerate, despite the 2 billion doses contracted, for a population of 450 million, rates are still below 10%, which is very little due to the effort already made.
While Italy, Germany and France vaccination 10.3% outside the block the United Kingdom has already reached 36.5%, in Brazil close to 13% have already received the first dose, the official data is 15,503,373 for the first dose, while 4,699,784 for the second dose, in a total of more than 20 million, but the rate of infection and mortality grows, if we think that 12.5 million have already had covid-19 it can be said that in number there is a small advantage.
However, it is not so, it would be necessary that half of the population already had the first dose, but looking at the most optimistic case, which is the 38% of the United Kingdom, we see that the way to go is great.
The hope comes from the two institutes that develop the vaccine in Brazil, Butantã in São Paulo and FioCruz in Rio de Janeiro, it is believed that people over 60 years of age may be vaccinating in April, this would lead to a rate of just over 20% in the month, not counting the external contracts that can increase this number a lot, reaching an optimistic rate of 35%.
This is because the promise of 57,179,258 doses fell to 47,329,258 doses, among which the number decreased are Pfizer and Oxford, but with the promise of vaccines coming from abroad this rate could reach the goal expected in May for 47 657 058 just below the plan.
The rate will only exceed that planned in the month of August where more than 82 million doses are expected instead of the planned 35 million, so only in September can a drop in infections and deaths be expected, the health system is expected in trouble to get there.
The hope remains the growth of vaccines available on the market.
The civilization crisis and the third excluded
25
Mar
The fact that we are stuck with dualism, now transformed into
political polarization as if in nature and in society there were always only two poles in conflict without a third (or even fourth and fifth options) seems to make no sense with the logical paradox developed by Barsarab Nicolescu and find a parallel only in quantum physics (picture inside).
It is not true, Barsarab’s own text that calls for a Reform of Education and Thought (Barsarab, 1999) indicates that one can see in this change the center of a crisis greater than physical or logical issues, says Barsarab: “One thing it is certain: a great gap between the mentality of the actors and the internal development needs of a type of society invariably accompanies the fall of a civilization ”, or to put it another way, more ontological, between Being and Non-Being there is a Non-Being-being state that penetrates into dualisms and paradoxes.
Barsarab’s letter calling for an education reform, Edgar Morin also asks and others perceived a crisis in modernity as thought and education, the Third Included theorist T, gives a worrying sentence: “The risk is enormous, because the continuous expansion of Western civilization, on a world scale, would make the fall of that civilization equivalent to the fire of the entire planet, in no way comparable to the first two world wars ”.
There is also a linear and monodirectional thinking where the intention is always to polarize and create a “single” and monochromatic path, with the eternal danger of authoritarianism and deviations of power, in order to distend it would be necessary a more open world and where everyone is included. Education must walk and help this context, Barsarab says in his letter: “The harmony between mentalities and knowledge presupposes that such knowledge is intelligible, understandable. But can that understanding still exist, in the era of disciplinary big bang and extreme specialization? ”
The harsh reality of the pandemic shows that we oscillate between true solidarity and a relaxation to face the crisis, and the opportunistic polarization that wants to take advantage of the deaths and deviations from a poorly managed health crisis, in some more countries, but in almost all.
Barsarab’s sentence that seems harsh is not: “Is there anything between and across disciplines and beyond any and all disciplines? From the point of view of classical thought there is nothing, absolutely nothing.
The space in question is empty, completely empty, like the vacuum of “classical physics”, because it is in the void, in the epoché where a true philosophy can flourish, even when it is not (the suspension of judgment, the new horizons beyond the pre- concepts, etc.) is that it is .
The proximity in Ricoeur and Pope Francis
23
Mar
Paul Ricoeur’s quote in the papal encyclical Fratelli Tutti is of a
philosophical and theological dimension that few still understood, by separating partners from close ones, inspired by Ricoeur’s categories, the pope dialogues with contemporaneity both with philosophy and with theology and opens a new path for concrete fraternalism.
Although the tendency of Utopian content that the word Fraternity (the name of the encyclical is Fratelli, remember) takes on a new dimension when reading Socius et Prochain de Ricoeur.
It can be said that it develops a true culture of proximity, that is, it is not the friends of that group that I am connected with, of those who share a certain “identity”, the encyclical also clarifies these false concepts of identity that isolate us from others.
Ricoeur’s mention deserves note: “charity brings together the two dimensions – the mythical and the institutional – as it implies an effective way of transforming history that requires incorporating everything: institutions, law, technique, experience, professional contributions, analysis scientific, administrative procedures ”(FT §164), and thus incorporates human realities in the mythical.
It can be said that it is a realistic realism of a utopia of a better possible world, which cannot be reduced to an ineffective religious sentimentality that threatens certain conceptions that both mystique and good philosophy contemplate, going against the Other, proximity .
Another essential point of the encyclical is the misuse of the identity category, the Encyclical will say that “when they cling to an identity that separates them from others” and it is in Chapter III that speaks precisely of thinking
And the Encyclical alerts: “There are peripheries that are close to us, in the center of a city or in the family itself”. (FT §97), and again in Paul Ricoeur we find: “the neighbor is the very conduct of being present (…) the neighbor’s science is immediately blocked by a neighbor’s praxis: we do not have a neighbor; I am the next someone’s neighbor “(Ricoeur, 1968).
It is the misunderstanding of this category that leads bad philosophy to not understand what the other means and to give and this can be seen in the whole history of philosophy in the different conceptions of identity, the concept is in Stuart Hall and also Heidegger’s that identity is the degree of understanding that each one has of their own culture, but the topic is controversial and we will return to it.
Ricoeur, Paul “O socius e o próximo”, in História e Verdade, trad. F. A. Ribeiro (Companhia Editora Forense: Rio de Janeiro, 1968),
Pope Francis. (2020) Carta Encíclica Fratelli Tutti (FT), Vatican. Available in:
Fratelli tutti (3 October 2020) | Francis (vatican.va)
The unpredictable future of the pandemic
15
Mar
It is becoming increasingly clear that the future of the pandemic
may be far from what everyone imagines, the number of variants of the virus, scientists are beginning to identify the small variations it makes in its genetic code, and for years epidemiologists have said that we should be prepare for a next pandemic, if we haven’t done it before, now more than ever should be done.
Meanwhile, the epidemic shows no signs of cooling, despite the number dropping, in Europe for example, there was a considerable increase this week, of every 100 infections registered in the world, 41 are from Europe, the Brazilian case we have already revealed is tragic due to the records infections and deaths higher than last year’s data.
The studies on the variants also find a change in its genetic code that is frightening because with each transmission, changes in the genetic code can influence the efficiency of the vaccine (we have already explained the efficacy rates that depend on the “type” of the vaccine), that is it may happen that the next epidemic is the coronavirus itself in one of its mutations.
What to do for now, increase the vaccine and combine it with lockdown, is a cultural fact that will be difficult in Brazil and the restrictions are highly unpopular, but there is nothing else to do, and it needs to be combined with increased rates. vaccination.
Another problem is the humanitarian crisis that can occur, limiting the movement of people means limiting trade, consumption of goods, etc., which in 2020 had a positive fact, since the little circulation of vehicles and the use of non-renewable energies, it caused CO2 emissions to drop by an average of 6% across the planet, and some signs of nature rehabilitation appeared, the presence of dolphins close to the coast, which means an abundance of fish, improved levels of pollution in large cities.
However, it is important to say that the number of deaths grows that had started to decrease, returns to very worrying levels, and new bouts happen again due to the virus variants.
The economy must also be a worrying factor because there are already signs in many countries of social problems, unemployment, poverty levels and related issues: income distribution and impoverishment.
We can learn from this cruel lesson, but still most people care little about what hasn’t directly affected them yet, but it will gradually affect everyone.
LockDown of Brazil calamity and the P1 variant
08
Mar
We could have mitigated the most critical periods of the 
pandemic since the beginning of the pandemic with phases of lockdown and opening. However, it almost always faltered due to the unpopularity of the measure, mainly to trade and some environments that prioritize profits over lives, because several non-essential sectors they could have closed, not to mention the irresponsibility of parties and agglomerations for some kind of “party”.
Now almost every country in the red phase that indicates the exhaustion of hospitals and record numbers of contamination and deaths, we still hesitate in harsh but necessary measures.
The Brazilian variant of the virus, called P1, is more contagious and for which the Coronavac vaccine is even less effective, and AstraZeneca, which is more efficient, is still in the slow phase of vaccination, in total we have not yet vaccinated 10% of the population and the reduction of 8 million vaccines was announced by the government itself.
Countries that have increased vaccination efficiency have combined lockdown with vaccination, because vaccine contact with researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Leicester explains that contact between vaccinees and variants can give rise to “superpowering” mutations that are capable of circumvent the immunizing action, and this in Brazil can become a pandemic bomb.
The calamity in which almost all states and most cities are located, can put a little judgment in the minds of those who manage the crisis, not only the central government, but also the state governments and the mayors of Brazilian cities.
The P1 variant is already feared, many countries are already taking care of Brazilian migration, fearing that the variant will spread and contaminate the process that in many countries is already reducing the pandemic, it is sad for Brazil, but we must understand these measures as necessary.
It is true that some services cannot stop, there are essential services and they must be active so that there is no shortage, an even greater loss of purchasing power, some are already observed in everyone, but life precedes gains and they are necessary measures that guarantee the minimum sacrifice, especially to the poorest.
A tough measure is necessary and without it, even vaccination can be compromised, and it is also necessary to take care of the effectiveness against the P1 variant already present in most Brazilian cities.
It will be a tough week and we should all be more careful and understand if the authorities have to take restrictive measures, the scenario is practically a war.
It is almost impossible in the Brazilian context to ask for this, but it would be good to have greater and genuine solidarity to face the most critical moment of the pandemic.
Variant, slow vaccination and the third wave
22
Feb
There are several variants, especially South Africa, Brazilian
and British, although there are controversies about their severity, it is certain that the spread of the virus is faster, and in the Brazilian case it already seems to be present in good part of the Brazilian territory, there is no isolation of regions and combating the pandemic is one of the most inefficient and faltering.
Vaccination remains slow, but results in Europe are more effective because they are combined with restrictions and confinement policies, and are also in late winter, and the arrival of new batches of vaccines is expected, AstraZeneca confirms a batch 10 million vaccines for Brazil at the end of February, but vaccination is slow in other countries as well.
The so-called third wave is due to Europe’s release for Christmas and the end of the year, many governments have recognized the error, here in Brazil the beaches continue to register movement and there is no clear policy to avoid agglomerations, it is not just about closing stores and commerce, as some cities have even done with supermarkets, the central problem is awareness.
The third wave then came because of the liberality of the holiday season, and soon afterwards almost all of Europe closed, including Sweden, which was more liberal until the arrival of winter, the only country that begins to release gradually is Greece but it had a very austere #lockdown.
Another concern is with the third wave is the variant, the infection is faster and quickly fills hospitals and creates a situation of chaos in the already stressed health system that struggles for a year with the most serious cases, Covid’s numbers officially fall worldwide and is restrained in Europe, but the measures remain severe.
The number of vaccinated people in Brazil exceeds 5.5 million, but the pace could be higher, the problem is the supply, 18 million more doses of Coronavac and 16.9 million of AstraZeneca are promised for March, the other Chemical Union / Gamaleya and Precis / Bharat Biotech are on schedule, still for the first semester, the laboratories produce the Sputnik V and Covaxin vaccines, respectively.
The state of Amazonas has the highest number of vaccinates 4.87%, while São Paulo has the highest in absolute numbers, a total of 1,620,182 people vaccinated in a percentage of 3.5% population, with a large percentage of second doses.
The map above shows the various lockdown situations in Europe.
Review life and re-educate to live
18
Feb
Part of the world economic crisis, this is Morin’s analysis
is beyond economic, moral and ethical, in his sixth book on the Method of complexity, he develops the anthropological, historical and philosophical analysis of the problem, explaining that it starts from a concept inspired by Kant.
Here ethics is defined as a self-imposed moral requirement, instead of imperatives arising from practical reason, in Morin’s ethics based on complexity, it comes from three sources: one internal, analogous to our conscience, the other simulated and oriented external by cultures, beliefs and norms pre-established in the community, and from previous sources that are the very organization of living beings and transmitted genetically.
His ethics thus presents an ethics that requires reflection on our moral, social and values choices that we bring to our daily lives, here the civilizational crisis is serious.
However, Kantian ethics favored a self-centered, egocentric ethics, according to my interests and my will, ignoring that it should share with others, and this means that we must also orient ourselves towards a vision that is sensitive to society as a whole and those without a voice.
In times of a pandemic, we were “forced” for reasons of public health, but also for education, to limit our movements, to maintain safe social isolation, and to look at each person and feel responsible for him, is this what all do
This apparent limitation of freedom is in fact one that should already be incorporated into our social ethics, without a consistent education for the practice of fraternity and a careful and sensitive look at the other, we can fall into a social vacuum and feed the already present civilization crisis. .
It is necessary to go through a long path of personal reflection and be willing to change habits and attitudes to help society as a whole to emerge from a crisis that is not only health but also social.
Quarantine and Lent
17
Feb
Those who manage to live this long quarantine, which enters the
second year, as perspectives and hopes are true, but also with anguish and concerns, understand that there is a cause for attention, encouragement and concern, especially with the anguished. There was no carnival, and there is no reason to party, it is true that some groups insist, but if we look at the number of people compared to society as a whole, they are a minority, the majority are concerned and want us to have a way out of this suffering soon.
For Christians it is a period of prayer, fasting and abstinence, it means to abstain from some things that the new normal is already taking away from us, however this can be done voluntarily, thinking about the society as a whole that suffers. Representative of Catholicism, but also of Christianity, Pope Francis always looks at the whole human family with tenderness and passion as a good Latin, in his February 12 message he invited us “Let’s go up to Jerusalem…” (Mt 20, 18) which means how he himself explains a “journey of conversion, prayer and sharing of our goods”, and so to live this Lent with an attentive eye to those suffering from abandonment and anguish because of the pandemic (in the photo the door where Jesus began his final journey in Jerusalem).
When Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he goes there to live the days of the Passover, the Jews already celebrated it and still celebrate it today, but it does not always coincide due to the Jewish calendar being different from our Christian, but the lamb that is “sacrificed” during Easter, referring to the sacrifice Abraham made in place of his son, it is Jesus himself this lamb at Christian Easter.
The quarantine of all is the pandemic, saying words of encouragement that comfort, comfort, strengthen, stimulate instead of words that humiliate, distress, irritate and despise emphasized the Pope.
I think that due to the quarantine situation it will be a different Lent, in which we will go deeply into our pains as humanity, and we will be able to think about a much more promising and hopeful future ahead, Lent is not just death, we go through it , but the resurrection that is on the other side for the one who accepts to pass through the narrow door.
All humanity suffers, so it is a moment of passion for all humanity, and those who are fraternal and supportive will know the way to alleviate the pain of those who suffer.
It is time to think about the essentials of life, to review our false paths of progress and to review our personal lives.
