Brasil

19 March

In the city of Sao Paulo only supermarkets, bakeries, convenience stores, pet shops, pharmacies, restaurants, farmer markets, hospitals, and gas stations will be allowed to remain open from March 20 to April 5. That includes those within malls. Restaurants and other food places should follow OMS recommendations of social distance, cleaning, etc.

Malls and gyms should close its doors, effective immediately until April 30 in all Sao Paulo state cities.

Several cocktail bars in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have already closed earlier this week.

Their major concern is about what incentives and support the federal/state/local Government will provide in taxes, pay roll, credit lines, and they also willing to negotiate rent with landlords. Only a few benefits were announced so far.

According to ABRASEL (Brazilian Association of Bars and restaurants) around 3 million people from the hospitality industry will loose theirs jobs in the next 30-40 days.

ABRASEL closed a deal with iFood (leading delivery service app) to allow bars/restaurants to be paid faster (from 28% days to one week average) and this will inject 600 million working capital. Owners still complaining about high service taxes from delivery apps.

AMBEV (AB-Inbev) will turn one of its local breweries into a sanitizing alcohol factory to produce 500k units to be donated to hospitals in SP, Rio and Brasília.

No mandatory curfew yet but people are advised to stay home.

Brazilian borders remain open. American Airlines is not flying to Brazil since last week. Gol (local airline) suspended all international flights last week too.

Official stats at this moment (March 27, morning): 77 deaths, 2,988 cases.