The virus swept through the region like past plagues that have traveled the river with colonizers and corporations.
It spread with the dugout canoes carrying families from town to town, the fishing dinghies with rattling engines, the ferries moving goods for hundreds of miles, packed with passengers sleeping in hammocks, side by side, for days at a time.
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Since the 1500s, waves of explorers have traveled the river, seeking gold, land and converts — and later, rubber, a resource that helped fuel the Industrial Revolution, changing the world.
-> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/25/world/americas/coronavirus-brazil-amazon.html