Coordenação federativa e a gestão da pandemia de COVID-19 na Região Integrada de Desenvolvimento do Distrito Federal e Entorno (Ride-DF)

Abstract

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the performance of the different spheres of government in Brazil and their articulation/coordination relationships have been questioned. On a national scale, within a system marked by contradictions of the Brazilian federalism, features point to reduced coordination and even a judicialization of actions. In the case of the Integrated Region of Development of the Federal District (Ride-DF), the actions of the State governors involved in its management point to a situation of conflict regarding the measures to face the pandemic spread. The paper aims to analyse to what extent there is a coordination of actions to face the COVID-19 pandemic in Ride-DF considering the governments of the States of Minas Gerais and Goiás and the Federal District. The premise is that the action between the three governments is uncoordinated, and this reflects the main problems of Brazilian federalism and the history of reduced articulation and institutional fragility of the Ride-DF. The methodology used was composed by the analysis of the contingency plans adopted to face the pandemic (both national and of the Federal Unities that compose the Ride-DF), the request for information through the Information Access Law and the analysis of the vaccination operational plans of these same Federal Unities. The results pointed to an almost total ignorance of the Ride-DF actions in response to COVID-19, both in contingency plans and in the vaccination operational plans. The requests for information directed to the governments of the Federal District and the State of Goiás demonstrated that the main joint action of these Unities was the establishment of a Term of Cooperation on the subject, however, with very little effectiveness. Thus, an isolated action of the state and district governments was verified, as a reflection of the tendency of reduced federative articulation in response to the sanitary crisis caused by COVID-19.