Comparing the responses of the health system in the United States and Brazil to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This study presents similar situations that have occurred in the health systems of the USA and Brazil with regard to dealing with COVID-19. Although the health systems of the two countries are different, the US system is public and private, with Medicaid and Medicare, and Brazil has the Universal Health System, which guarantees the right of every citizen. In this context, impactful health situations are presented, unfolding due to disorganized systems, in the face of the Pandemic. These are difficulties in decision-making by governments, with one action or another putting the entire nation in danger. Both countries didn't know what they were dealing with, and there was also a shortage of supplies such as respirators, medicines, PPE, professional training for the front line and ICU beds. At the time the pandemic hit the international stage, the countries in question had several conflicts of ideas and there was a lot of fake news, even from the two rulers who called themselves Presidents of the Federative Republic. A greater number of people were infected and died in these countries due to the population's resistance to obeying the distancing protocols proposed by the WHO. And due to the non-acceptance of a large part of the citizens not to be vaccinated, where the US Government carried out campaigns calling on the population to vaccinate, meanwhile the secrecy of justice was created for 100 years for the Brazilian President with the right not to show his vaccination card.