From the New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is the Daily.

Today,

Brazil has a long and distinguished history of navigating public health crises

until now.

Ernesto Londonio, on what went wrong with the coronavirus,

it's Thursday, July 2nd.

Okay, Ernesto, as we're talking, Brazil is second only to the US in cases of

COVID-19. Where do we need to start to understand how we got here?

Well, Michael, while we're seeing kind of the first concerns about coronavirus

rippling beyond China, it was the farthest thing from Brazilian

spines. You know, it's the peak of summer in the southern hemisphere.

And especially in February.

People are in party mode.

You know, all across Brazil and the big cities, people are celebrating carnival,

which turns into this like week's long celebration.

You know, the beaches are thronged. There's block parties on the street where

everybody's dancing and, you know, there's a lot of people kissing strangers.

Everybody is sort of a sweaty mess. There's a lot of heavy drinking.

And, you know, just about the time when people are starting to sort of

nurse their post-carnival hangover in late February.

The first case is diagnosed in São Paulo in Brazil's largest city.

And the first case involves a man who had traveled home from Italy.

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