But this has not been the story of all Brazilians.

In a country of profound inequality, where delivery services are extremely inexpensive, the comfortable can afford to order in virtually any service or product: groceries, medications, wine. The hairdresser makes house calls. So does the manicurist. Friends send home-cooked meals via mototaxi. Want a coronavirus test? The lab will send over a technician.

Brazil’s deliver-anything culture has enabled a minority of people to achieve an extraordinary degree of isolation. In August — six months into the pandemic — surveys showed that 8 percent of Brazilians still hadn’t left their houses. In October, amid the lull between the first and second coronavirus waves, 1 percent of people still weren’t leaving. Now, as cases and deaths rise once more, people are retreating back into complete isolation, or are grateful they never left it.