https://doi.org/10.3828/tpr.2020.73 Lara Furtado Viewpoint Strategies in Brazilian informal settlements: fighting COVID-19 towards urban resilience Lara Furtado is a Post-doc Fellow at the Insight Data Science Lab, Federal University of Fortaleza, Campus do Pici, Bloco 952, Departamento de Computação, Fortaleza, CE, Brazil; email: larasfur@gmail.com The COVID-19 crisis has materialised what is often an abstract discussion about the entrenched socio-economic and spatial vulnerability experienced by most of the world population living in informal settlements. Those communities are particularly vulner- able to COVID-19 since working from home is often not an option and scarce urban services hinder thorough hygiene protocols (Corburn et al., 2020). These challenges have become evident in Brazil since the pandemic reached the country around late February. Led by extremist president Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil has made the headlines for its decision to ignore World Health Organization recommendations and to produce statements at the federal level that disregard science, discourage physical distancing and criticise quarantine. Since early February, two health ministers have been fred or have resigned for failing to capitulate to the political discourse that undermines the severity of the virus (Ricard and Medeiros, 2020). Meanwhile, the crisis has been overtaken by a political agenda and increased the chasm between the federal govern- ment, which denies the crisis, and cities which are experiencing collapse of health systems and digging mass graves (Londoño et al., 2020). Governors and mayors have engaged in continuous legal battles to refute presidential ordinances that block their eforts to deal with the crisis. These clashes mid-pandemic have taken a toll in the governing capacity of already burdened local systems. On 20 June, Brazil hit the alarming mark of one million cases of COVID-19, with nearly 50,000 deaths. However, even governments that accept the severity of the virus have disregarded how it specifcally impacts low-income families (Ataíde et al., 2020). The mortality rate is disproportionally high in informal settlements, which house nearly 12 million Brazilians (Wilkinson, 2020). In the face of inaction from local governments, activists have united around a shared cause and employed autonomous and insurgent strate- gies to protect and inform their communities. This context of risk allows planners to look at how structural processes can support actions taking place locally and to revisit models that have perpetuated vulnerability. In the face of this statement, this Viewpoint presents a model to systematise the needs emerging in informal settlements due to COVID-19 and to organise strategies that increase their resilience. The framework seeks to simplify a complex process of recovery to create urban resilience through opportunities for knowledge sharing and This document was generated by CloudPublish for 189.36.204.140 on 2021-04-20, 17:16:44 1618939004GMTC