Covid-19: Why Copacabana Is Rio’s Hardest Hit Neighborhood

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The coronavirus pandemic has hit the world famous Copacabana beach district of Rio de Janeiro particularly hard: the more affluent southern zone of the district ranks at the top of the official list of Covid-19 deaths in the city.

There is a reason for this: according to the 2010 census, Copacabana records the highest proportion of elderly residents in Brazil. Epidemiologist Alexandre Kalache even claims that no other district in Latin America has such a high density of senior citizens. The 74-year-old Brazilian must know: he is one of the world’s leading experts on aging and is intimately connected with Copacabana.

Thirty percent are in the risk group

Kalache grew up in Copacabana and, after a 43-year career abroad, now lives back in the home where he grew up with his parents as a child. As director of the World Health Organization’s (W.H.O.) Global Aging Program, he turned the neighborhood into his laboratory years ago.

Using it as an example, he investigated how an urban area could be adapted to the needs of an older population. “Copacabana has the same demographic structure as Japan,” he explains on the phone, pointing out that the Asian country currently has the oldest population in the world. According to the latest census, about 30 percent of Copacabana’s 140,000 inhabitants are over 60. In coronavirus times, this means that they are all part of the risk group.

The beach and Serzedelo Correia Square in the heart of the district, where senior citizens generally like to spend their time, are now closed; the fitness equipment designed specifically for the elderly is isolated, as are the concrete chess tables. The city urges the population to remain at home to prevent the virus from spreading further. But, as in the whole of Brazil, the number of new infections in Copacabana continues to rise.

The middle and upper classes imported the virus from their trips to Europe, infecting nannies, cashiers and doormen, Kalache explains. These workers live in favelas, in confined spaces and in precarious sanitary conditions, causing the virus to spread rapidly.

Copacabana’s entire service sector depends on favela inhabitants, he adds. For lack of income, they continue to work even when they have symptoms, often as housemaids or carers for the elderly, infecting them with the disease.

Experts agree that, due to underreporting, the number of infections is several times higher than the recorded figures. In favelas, where fewer coronavirus tests are run than in other parts of the country, the issue is likely to be more severe, according to Kalache.

In his opinion, despite a higher rate of infection, the fact that the favelas record relatively fewer deaths than Copacabana is related to the age structure of its residents. “There are many more young people in the favelas than in Copacabana,” he says. There, an elderly population lives in relatively compact housing. “That’s why there are so many deaths.”

The Copacabana dream

The fact that so many senior citizens live in Copacabana is related to the district’s glamorous past. The famous neighborhood used to be an isolated spot by the sea until a tunnel was bored through the Morro de Vila Rica rock in the late 19th century. Copacabana was thereby connected to the rest of the city.

A trendy district on the beach emerged, which quickly appealed to politicians, intellectuals and musicians due to its breathtaking location. It experienced its golden age between 1930 and 1950, with discos, cinemas and bars springing up like mushrooms. Many economically privileged youths, including Kalache’s parents, were drawn to what was then the trendiest district in Rio.

“It was my father’s dream to live in Copacabana,” says the son of a Syrian immigrant and a Brazilian from Belo Horizonte, in retrospect. His mother still lives there – in the house next to his. “She is 102 years old and a survivor of a generation that moved to Copa when they were young,” says Kalache. He and his siblings left the neighborhood when they moved out of their home. In old age, he returned.

Kalache’s family history is an example of what happened to the district: younger generations who grew up in Copacabana left the district to settle in new trendy neighbourhoods. Those who moved here in glamorous days remained.

Everything is there

Ilse Block also got to know Copacabana back then. The 80-year-old from Rio Grande do Sul came to Rio as a young woman for an apprenticeship. To this day she remembers the moment when she stood on Copacabana beach for the first time: “Never in my life had I seen anything so beautiful,” she enthusiastically says over the phone. She knew then that she wanted to grow old here. Later, she bought a condo apartment where she has lived for 35 years.

Block lists the reasons why she likes Copacabana: Her dentist is two blocks away from her home, and she goes to her Pilates class three times a week on the same floor. The orthopedist is on the same corner as her favorite restaurant. She can get everywhere on foot, a hospital is nearby and she can walk along the beach boardwalk. In other parts of the city, she says, it would be much more difficult. “Copacabana has a lot to offer older people,” she says.

Her life has also changed since mid-March. She no longer leaves her apartment because of the virus. “I’m not afraid of that,” she says. But she protects herself and doesn’t let anyone in the house. The groceries that her niece or the condo porter get for her are placed in front of her door. She has only words of praise for the latter: he even handles all the banking affairs of her elderly neighbour on the fifth floor.

Block’s account is in line with Alexandre Kalache’s W.H.O. study of the neighbourhood. He describes the porter as being the best friend of Copacabana’s senior citizens. They are often confidants and always on hand.

Elderly people like to live in the neighbourhood because everything is within easy reach and the beach is right on their doorstep. Maybe this is also true for Kalache. Having locked himself up in his home in Copacabana in mid-March, he mentions, at the very beginning of his phone interview, how wonderful his sea view is.