Covid-19 immunization campaigns must overcome enormous difficulties in reaching remote indigenous groups, isolated riverside communities and the villages of quilombola people, the descendants of African slaves.

In Brazil under its Covid-19 lockdown: “At first, only the most vulnerable were starving, but the hunger queue is growing each day. It’s a hunger pandemic.”

Victim-blaming and a worship of the free-market system made the Irish Famine much worse. The death toll from Covid-19 shows we have not fully learned from the past.

This week has brought us all into close contact with human suffering. We are all like the man on the side of the road in the story of the Good Samaritan, beaten and bloody.

Rolling blackouts and more bad weather on the way have most Texans hunkering down under blankets and trying to stay as warm. Conditions on both sides of the border were challenging.

Refugees “can’t obtain the Brazilian documents,” one local bishop said, “but they keep needing shelter, food and healthcare.”