Virus of ignorance decimates Brazil

More than 211 Brazilians are battling the threats of the coronavirus, a new, multi-organic, and little-known disease that has already rapidly claimed nearly 14,5 lives. Jair Bolsonaro, however, downplays the reality and insults the pain of the families.

The president expends energy on petty disputes inside and outside the government. He fights with any authority who doesn't blindly align themselves with his insane policies. The most recent casualty was the Minister of Health, Nelson Teich, who fell after less than a month in office. This is the second ministerial replacement who refuses to obey orders harmful to health and who opposes science.

A tragedy is looming! This is what could happen if Bolsonaro appoints someone to the Health Ministry who accepts being guided by his genocidal mind. He's not a doctor, but he prescribes chloroquine on street corners and wants to lift all restrictions, suspending social isolation, a strategy recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). His priority is political rhetoric for his reelection, not people's lives. Bolsonaro must be stopped! This man has gone mad and could commit a true genocide in the country!

Every week Bolsonaro chooses a target to try and publicly blame for the crisis. A meeting at the presidential palace, with business leaders demanding solutions to the crisis, was taken to the other side of the square, the Supreme Court (STF), by Bolsonaro trying to shift the responsibility onto the president of the Supreme Court, Dias Toffoli. There, he transformed the meeting into a political act and, without consulting the president of the STF, broadcast the meeting live on social media, publicly exposing a branch of government.

We witnessed an embarrassed president of the Supreme Court saying, between the lines, that he, Jair, is the president of the Republic, not Toffoli. That it is the task of the Executive branch, not the Supreme Court, to plan actions, build consensus, and coordinate political actors and society against the coronavirus.


Bolsonaro further exposes his lack of understanding of the presidential role and his disregard for the decorum of the office.


Today, the greatest threat to Brazil's response to Covid-19 is Bolsonaro himself. He is repeating the mistakes of history. In 1918, the Spanish Flu, initially underestimated and treated as a joke, ended up paralyzing Rio de Janeiro, the capital of the Republic, and killing the president-elect Rodrigues Alves. It killed so quickly that people collapsed coughing in the streets, and corpses were scattered throughout houses and sidewalks. In eight months, the disease circled the globe, killing between 50 and 100 million people.

President Bolsonaro lacks the capacity to lead the overcoming of Brazil's greatest health crisis, the greatest of this century, while constantly denying the credibility of science.


He makes no effort whatsoever to do so, and doesn't even look at the thousands of positive examples that presidents of other countries have set to save their people.


On Friday (May 8th), the World Health Organization (WHO) highlighted the 40th anniversary of the global eradication of smallpox, the first and only human disease eradicated worldwide, the greatest victory for public health in the world. It existed for over 3,000 years and killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone. This achievement was only possible because of the unity of countries, such as the United States and the then Soviet Union, even during the Cold War. And all working for the benefit of science.

We, the PCdoB caucus in the Chamber of Deputies, have been working to do what Bolsonaro is not doing. The focus is on approving proposals that urgently guarantee resources to states and municipalities. We must give mayors and governors the means to care for the sick and prevent further deaths, as well as recover from the economic tragedy. We hope that the president will wake up, defend the Constitution, and the rights of Brazilians to life, dignity, and employment.