Brazil has always been a nation apart -- a huge Portuguese-speaking powerhouse and trendsetter with sexy beaches and bewitching music.
These days, it’s something else entirely: a Covid-spreading threat fast becoming a kind of regional leper colony.Leading the world in daily deaths and the source of a worrying Amazonian variant that’s more contagious and possibly deadlier, Brazil is a cause of deep anxiety for world health officials and its neighbors, who are barring their gates.Peru has closed flights to and from the country, Uruguay is sending extra doses of vaccines to its border towns and Chile now sends anyone arriving from Brazil to special quarantine hotels.