The Complete Epidemiological Bulletin that we present now, with updated data until August 17, 2020, shows the number of confirmed cases and deaths of Covid-19 among indigenous peoples in Maranhão, both by the Municipal Health Secretariats of Maranhão (SEMUS), and by the Maranhão Statistical Committee.

From our first Bulletin, with updated data until May 31, 2020, to the sixth bulletin, with updated data until July 29, 2020, we use the methodological strategy of mapping, systematizing and qualifying the data presented by SEMUS in the municipalities of Maranhão that focus on ITs in the state. Of the total of thirty-one (31) municipalities that focus on ITs, we monitor and disclose data from eleven (11) municipalities that register, in their bulletins, confirmed cases of Covid-19 among indigenous people. They are: Amarante do Maranhão, Arame, Barra do Corda, Bom Jardim, Guilherme's Center, Fernando Falcão, Grajaú, Jenipapo dos Vieiras, Maranhãozinho, Montes Altos and Sítio Novo.

From the beginning, the municipalities mapped above, even registering cases of indigenous people contaminated by Covid-19, never did so in order to make explicit who the contaminated peoples were and what their Indigenous Lands were. Most of these municipalities speak of “village” and “Indigenous Area”. Only one, the municipality of Amarante do Maranhão, speaks of “Indigenous Lands”, however, without saying who are the contaminated peoples in these lands. It was within this context that the Rede (CO) VIDA project sought to identify indigenous lands, villages and situate indigenous peoples who are in those lands and villages. Thus, we were able to expand and qualify the data previously presented by SEMUS in Maranhão.

However, in these almost three months of mapping and systematization of Covid-19 data among indigenous peoples in the state, the bulletins from the health departments of the municipalities that affect indigenous lands, have not made any progress with regard to the qualification of peoples' data. On the contrary, there was a setback with regard to the way in which these data were disseminated.

The setback to which we refer refers mainly to the lack of dissemination of Covid-19 data by SEMUS in some municipalities, such as Barra do Corda and Bom Jardim. In the previous bulletin, we highlight the case of SEMUS in Grajaú that, since the beginning of the mapping, recorded the numbers of confirmed cases by “village” and, at the end of July, at the request of the base pole, removed this type of record from its bulletin. and started to use another nomenclature to register such cases: “Indigenous Area”. Without the villages, we cannot locate the land, only the people, when this is possible, since in an indigenous land it is common to have more than one people, with their specific forms of territorial occupation. SEMUS de Grajaú continues to record the Covid-19 indigenous cases in this format, bringing the numbers by indigenous area, unlike the municipalities of Barra do Corda and Bom Jardim.

SEMUS in Barra do Corda changed the methodology for disseminating Covid-19 data (previously, the specification of indigenous cases was through the definition “Indigenous Area”) and started to present and disseminate, on the city hall website, the epidemiological bulletins homogenizing its citizens. He discarded the cultural diversity that characterizes not only this, but the majority of the state's municipalities. In order to meet our research proposal - map, systematize and specify which indigenous peoples and how many are being affected by Covid-19 -, we sought to gather information from municipal news blogs, the health and communication team, but we did not obtain feedback on the specificities of these data, only the general bulletin. In the municipality of Bom Jardim, the situation was aggravated by the deactivation of the profile of the social network Instagram, which also released epidemiological data. Therefore, we still have no access to data from these municipalities.

In other words, the SEMUS of these municipalities stopped reporting the cases without pointing out any justification for making this decision. However, we know that not disclosing the data of the pandemic makes it possible to manipulate that data and give the State the power to exempt itself from any construction of public policies to contain it. Undisclosed cases make the stage of the disease invisible and smooth the health crisis.

Even with all the problems presented since the beginning of the dissemination of data by SEMUS, such as the non-qualification of the number of confirmed cases by people, IT and / or village, it was possible to follow the evolutionary picture of the disease from the accumulated data, even though by “village”, or by “indigenous area”, as they registered. This strategy also enabled us to know who the people were and what land they belonged to. Nowadays, it has been increasingly difficult to access SEMUS information.

Another important issue in the form of current disclosure is the delay in updating the data. Both in the websites and in the profiles that the city halls and / or municipal departments have on the social network Instagram (which since the beginning was a source used by the (Co) VIDA Network), the speed in the dissemination of data does not follow the same rhythm of the previous months . The non-publication of data by these municipalities makes tackling the pandemic, at its different levels, political, social, health and the daily lives of indigenous communities, even more difficult.

We reiterate the questioning of the previous Bulletin: who is interested in this omission and invisibility of Covid-19 data among indigenous peoples? Does hindering access to pandemic data aim to minimize the health crisis that is spreading through indigenous territories? Maranhão has become the epicenter of cases of Covid-19, with regard to indigenous peoples, with 1,118 confirmed cases between 06 and 17 July 2020. It left this position without, however, decreasing the number of cases. On the contrary. The bulletin of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB), dated August 24, 2020, presents 1,724 confirmed cases of Covid -19 among indigenous people in the state.

The table below shows the data for the confirmed numbers based on the systematization of the SEMUS data. Later on we will confront you with the data from the Maranhão Statistical Committee. For this table we kept the numbers of Barra do Corda and Bom Jardim the same as in our last bulletin (July 29, 2020) because we no longer have access to data on the indigenous epidemiological situation.