The Covid-19 pandemic has radically affected everybody’s lives, both individually and collectively. But the effects of the crisis are felt in different ways by the various groups that compose our society, openly exposing historical inequalities that must also be faced.

In four months, the country has come to be the second nation with the highest death toll, lagging only behind the United States. While we follow the graphs’ ascending curves, we see a government that is incapable of reversing the situation.

Beyond the numbers, thousands of families lost their loved ones – most of them belonging to the most vulnerable part of the population, that before losing their lives had lost their jobs and rights.

For this reason, Idec launched, in partnership with other entities, a national warning, urging the authorities at federal, state and municipal levels to take responsibility for their actions and omissions, especially in what concerns the thousands of deaths that could have been and can be avoided. The movement started with 12 entities and, so far, already has 170 organizations and almost one thousand citizens.

Aiming to expose the neglect of Brazilians’ lives, we required a Public Meeting at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. On the basis of the sanitary law, we made a complaint to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, so as to hold the Union and the Republic Presidency accountable for actions and omissions that deepened the crisis resulting from the covid-19 pandemic.

As a rights defence entity, we closely monitor the measures proposed by the Government and the Legislative branch, to ensure that the conquered rights are not violated in this period. We have contributed with technical opinion that aims to improve the proposals made for tackling the pandemic, always regarding the consumers protection.

Regarding the Democracy, so young and dear in this country, we have joined forces with other movements, such as the Coalition for Life, Brazil for Democracy and for Life and the Pact for Democracy.

In addition, recently, following the global racism debate, we started to work together with the Black Coalition for Rights. This movement, in addition to the fight against racism, it has exposed a tragic impact of the pandemic on the brown and black population in Brazil.

And, despite the new current challenges, we have never neglected our historical causes for healthy and sustainable food; better conditions for healthcare consumers, finance and telecommunications services; for improvements in urban mobility, in energy systems - with more efficiency and fair price; and public policies that accompany digital evolution without violating rights.

In order to unite our struggles against Covid-19, we have produced several informative contents on the pandemic and also on various topics of high impact on consumer relations, in order to provide tools so consumers can prevent being harmed. Our health experts have prepared a set of instructions to the public addressing medicines and health plans. Specific material about the requisition of hospital beds was also released to the local Procons, in order to guarantee the sufficiency of vacancies in the Brazilian health system.

In the Health and Sustainable Food Program, our team created a platform called “Comida de Verdade” (Real Food), which aims to support local healthy food producers who need to distribute their products in times of social isolation and the shutdown of street fairs in many Brazilian cities, where they would normally sell their products. The platform already has more than 440 registered initiatives. Besides that, we are also supporting an international network that is monitoring strategies actions and corporate activities of ultra-processed food companies during these pandemic times, considering the enormous use of marketing strategies to promote their products and philanthropy.

We also took advantage of this moment of isolation to encourage the population to rethink their diet, adopting new and healthier habits. Meanwhile we continue to monitor lawsuits on taxation of unhealthy products, such as sugary drinks and pesticides; and pressing Anvisa (Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency) to approve the revision of the nutrition labeling scheme.

Like several sectors of society, public transport was also affected especially by the reduction in passengers due to the social isolation. What made a historical problem in the sector, the lack of financing beyond the tariff, become evident. For this reason, we launched together with partners a campaign to communicate society and decision makers about the situation in the sector.

We also produce informative material to clarify transport users about their rights and how they can complain about overcrowded transportations. In parallel, we concluded a survey on public transportation bidding models, carried out in 12 cities, comparing quality, management and remuneration items of notices and contracts.

In the fields of telecommunications and energy, we played an important role in exposing the need to maintain essential services during this period when people are at home and many with reduced income, which may affect the payment of electricity and internet services. We reinforce that the population's connectivity at this moment is essential to guarantee access to other rights such as education, work and health.

We also produce informative material to help consumers to read their electricity meter and to avoid overcharges in this pandemic period.

For the preservation of digital rights, we have taken legal actions on the use of facial recognition technologies by the São Paulo Metro and we worked to ensure that the General Data Protection Law (known as LGPD) comes into force with the least possible impact due to the pandemic.

Finally, we have updated our household budget spreadsheet to help families reorganize themselves after the income reduction and we have been demanding that banks act responsibly to help those most affected. And in addition to the pandemic, we advocate a policy to combat indebtedness, with effective measures that allow families to renegotiate their debts, so that they have the minimum to survive and reheat the economy, so affected by the coronavirus.

And even from a distance, we still help our associates. Our Relationship with associates’ area remains in operation, with our team safely working from home, continues to dedicate itself to guiding our associates about their rights, and assisting them in facing market abuse and guaranteeing their rights by the suppliers. We also continue to give special attention to associates in relation to the legal actions on the economic plans of the 90s - since there was an extension of the deadline for making an agreement with the banks.

In order to help more people, we opened our models of letters and petitions models for all interested consumers during the pandemic period, which are widely used to defend individual rights and resolve consumer complaints. And we increased our communication channels so that everyone can share their experiences and complaints to expand market monitoring during this period, with a section called “Idec na Escuta” (Idec’s Ombudsman).

The fact is that we are facing a new reality that will demand collective efforts to restore life in society and reactivate the various sectors of the economy. We at Idec continue to work towards making this tomorrow a better and fairer one.