The pandemic can "get worse" if the governments of affected countries do not take the fight against the coronavirus seriously, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Monday who said that "too many countries are going in the wrong direction."

In America, most of the continent´s countries are not doing enough to tackle the virus, and in some cases their handle of the virus is costing hundreds of lives every week. Such incompetence that is reflected on many government institutions across the continent could be a disease on itself that requires a cure.

Tedros has made warned about the inefficiency of Americas´ government to tackle the virus after announcing that in the last 24 hours the record for daily cases had been broken, with more than 230,000, almost half of them in only two countries (about 60,000 in the United States and 40,000 in Brazil). The WHO director has been clear in acknowledging that a return to the "old normal" is not in sight in the "foreseeable future".

"The virus is still our number one public enemy, but the actions of many governments and citizens do not reflect this," he has criticized, and has denounced that "the confused messages from some leaders are undermining a vital tool for any health response, such as the trust".

"Although the number of daily deaths is still relatively stable, there is much to worry about," added Tedros.

The Ethiopian expert has pointed out that the epicenter of the pandemic is currently concentrated in America, where more than half of the planet´s cases are registered, and that many of its countries are at times of intense transmission of the coronavirus, as well as than others in Africa and South Asia.

Tedros has assured, in any case, that "it is never too late to put the virus under control, even in cases of exponential infections", taking into account the examples of other countries that avoided community transmission (many in East Asia) or reduced infections as in some parts in Europe.

The need for a cure for Covid-19 is important, which is the job of scientics in the medical field who are advancing very well on their goal to produce the vaccine and deliver it to countries across the world.

But the cure for incompetent governments may be more clear to us only if we study the disease more carefully.

In Brasil, the most affected country in South America, the problem may not be the president Jair Bolsonaro and his decision to minimize the risks of the virus as he refuses to implement recommended measures to reduce infections, but instead the pressure he faces to bring solutions for the crisis may not be enough to prompt him to take real life-saving policies during this pandemic. The logic behind the decision to refuse to install restrictions across the country for the good of the economy is actually a good motivation and could result in a better economic performance that is going to be needed to rebuild the country after the pandemic which is going to cost a lot of money.

Since the beginning of the pandemic former president Lula da Silva has criticized harshly Bolsonaro´s policies on the virus.

"Imagine when Brazil had to decide to enter World War II, do you think (the president) was concerned about the union´s budget? Do you think he was concerned about the fiscal debt?" questioned Lula, during an interview with an argentinian televsion program. "Brazil spent 11 times our budget in the war against Paraguay,"

For Lula, the solution could be brought by the state, as he argued that the country is facing a war against invisible enemy.

"Thankfully nature created this monster," he said. "It is a monster that allows the blind to begin to see that the state is only part of the solution in certain crises," he said, advocating for a larger state´s participation in the economy.

Using the war as an illustration is on the point, because in order to win wars the state needs to be efficient.

"If you keep safe your people, then with the people you can rebuild the economy. But if you kill your people, you have no reconstruction of the economy," Lula explained. "I believe that  president Alberto Fernández is one hundred percent correct when he says the economy recovers, a life does not recover (from death).´ A president is elected to take care of the people," he added.

Argentinian president Alberto Fernandez has advocated for an eager government participation in the economy to find solutions to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. Three weeks ago, he announced the expropiation of Vicentin, a major agricultural conglomerate that represented nine percent of Argentina’s grains exports last year, one of the biggest economic sector in Argentina.

Vicentin went bankrupt during the pandemic but financial problems were already present before lockdowns were implemented across the country.

The participation of the state in strategic sectors of the country´s economy is key in the fight against the negative consequences of the pandemic as companies with weak leadership can´t cope with situation that resembles a war.

However, Vicentin expropriation was blocked by judge Fabian Lorenzini who said government officials who’d seized the company by decree should step aside to perform a supervisory role instead.

"When I look back and wonder what I did wrong in Vicentin, I see that I was wrong because I thought that the crisis situation was more assumed. I thought they (the people) were going to celebrate. It did not happen, they began to accuse me of horrible things," the President explained in an interview in a radio program.

SURVEILLANCE ANTI-COVID

Beyond government participation onto the economy, wars require keeping an eye on those individuals who represent a threat to the government. In this case, the government could track people´s movement across the cities to inform them if they´ve been in places where infected people has been spotted. Surveillance is needed to avoid propagation of the virus.

Despite limiting their lockdowns, democratic South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong have had comparatively more success fighting the virus than many Western democracies, but their approaches—the result of a 17-year build-up in response to the SARS outbreak—also include intrusive government surveillance. South Korea, for instance, is tracking infected people and providing a live map of their locations to anyone wishing to avoid them. It’s hard to imagine such surveillance finding purchase in the US given Americans´ distrust of how governments could use personal data.

In Venezuela, the military has been deployed in hot spots in Maracaibo in order to prevent people to leave their houses without permits.

If the virus represents an invisible enemy, the the state must act as a present force to counter the effects of the virus, and this goes beyond surveillance, government participation in the country´s economy, but also more efficient institutions that speed the process to deliver much needed policies that during the "old normal" could be seen as authoritarian.

WHO recommendations to reduce infections such as lockdown, masks usage and social distancing are praised by medical experts, but even if these are implemented, it must be enforced and the only way to do such thing is through the state.