International | It’s catching

The pandemic has exacerbated existing political discontent

The problem is worst in middle-income countries

|Bogotá, Durban, São Paulo and Singapore

A PILE OF fake corpses littered the heart of Bangkok. The bodies—white sacks stuffed with hay and spattered with red paint—symbolised Thai victims of covid-19. “They’re dead because of the failure of this government,” a protester bellowed into a megaphone. To underscore the point, protesters had laid the “corpses” across a giant portrait of the prime minister, which they then set ablaze.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “It’s catching”

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