Has Brazil been careless?

Manaus is one of the hardest hit cities in Brazil, which officially has lost more than 23,000 lives to the coronavirus. But in the absence of evidence proving otherwise, relatives like das Graças are quick to deny the possibility that COVID-19 claimed their loved ones, meaning that the toll is likely a vast undercount.

As ambulances zip through Manaus with sirens blaring and backhoes dig rows of new graves, the muggy air in this city by the majestic Amazon River feels thicker than usual with such pervasive denial. Manaus has seen nearly triple the usual number of dead in April and May.

Doctors and psychologists say denial at the grassroots stems from a mixture of misinformation, lack of education, insufficient testing and conflicting messages from the country’s leaders.

Chief among skeptics is President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly called COVID-19 a “little flu,” and argued that concern over the virus is overblown.

Asked by a reporter about the surging number of deaths on April 20, Bolsonaro responded, “I’m not a gravedigger, OK?”

After less than a month on the job, and said that the interim minister, an army general with no background in health or medicine, will remain in charge of the pandemic response “for a long time.”

In a cabinet meeting last month, a visibly enraged Bolsonaro insulted governors and mayors enforcing stay-at-home measures.

The president’s political followers are receptive to his dismissal of the virus, as determined as he is to proceed with life as usual.

On a recent Saturday in Manaus, locals flocked to the bustling riverside market to buy fresh fish, unaware of the need for social distancing, or uninterested.

As swamped intensive-care units struggled to accommodate new patients airlifted from the Amazon, the faithful returned to some of the city’s evangelical churches.

Coffins arriving by riverboat did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of young people at clandestine dance parties.

In the streets and markets, masks cover chins and foreheads rather than mouths and noses.

To accommodate its swelling number of coffins, the public Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery razed an area of tropical forest to dig dozens of trenches in the rust-colored soil for burials.

These mass graves sparked anger toward city officials among families of the deceased. Why did their loved ones’ bodies have to be buried in such a way, they asked, if there was no evidence the deaths were caused by COVID-19?

Das Graças was among those who had hoped that her father could have a proper sendoff. But it wasn’t to be. The white-suited men informed her that his coffin would be sealed, a precaution taken now regardless of cause of death. He would be sent to the public cemetery’s refrigerated container to await burial.

• “A person can’t even die with dignity,” das Graças, 49, said through tears. “He’s going to spend the night in the freezer when we could be doing his wake at home!”

Like other countries of the world Brazil is suffering from the devastating pandemic but unlike other countries the death toll is among the highest in the world.