At the request of the Workers' Party (PT), the Attorney General's Office (PGR) opens an investigation into the 'data blackout' in the Health Ministry.

Current Brazil Network - The Attorney General's Office (PGR) has opened an investigation to look into the "data blackout" at the Ministry of Health. The process was initiated following a request to the Supreme Federal Court (STF) submitted by PT (Workers' Party) deputies Reginaldo Lopes (MG), Bohn Gass (RS), Gleisi Hoffmann (PR), and Alexandre Padilha (SP). They accuse the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, of prevarication and sanitary violations.

This is because Queiroga did not adopt any internal procedures to investigate the causes of an alleged hacker attack that occurred on December 10th, which compromised the ministry's electronic monitoring systems. Thus, this lack of transparency compromised the response to the pandemic, precisely at the moment when COVID-19 cases began to explode due to the Omicron variant, leaving the country in the dark.

Last Friday (18), Deputy Attorney General Humberto Jacques de Medeiros sent an official letter to the STF requesting information from the Federal Police about the investigations already conducted. The police, however, are focused on identifying the perpetrators of the alleged invasion. The parliamentarians' request, however, extends to the entire period in which the Health systems were unavailable or unstable.

The rapporteur for the case at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) is Minister Gilmar Mendes. In early January, the magistrate criticized, on social media, the delay in restoring the ministry's systems. The "data blackout" lasted about a month. In this regard, experts argue that, even today, data that is fundamental for guiding public policies during the pandemic is still lacking.

The following systems were offline: e-SUS Notifica, used for reporting mild cases of COVID-19; Conecte-SUS, which issues vaccination certificates; the National Immunization Program Information System (SI-PNI), responsible for data on administered vaccines; and Sivep-Gripe, for recording hospitalizations and deaths.

First instance

In its official letter to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the Attorney General's Office (PGR) also requested that an analysis be forwarded regarding the possibility of Queiroga being prosecuted in the first instance. This is because the STF has already established an understanding that there is no privileged jurisdiction in cases of administrative misconduct. According to the Attorney General's Office, "there is no jurisdiction by prerogative of function, due to its clearly civil nature."

Political action

For PT (Workers' Party) parliamentarians, the "data blackout" may have been a "political action" by the Bolsonaro government, aimed at hiding the real health situation in the country. "It is essential to identify those responsible for the crime and what the role of the federal government was," said Congressman Reginaldo Lopes, PT leader in the Chamber of Deputies. He emphasized that Bolsonaro has always attacked instruments of transparency in public information. In this sense, the absence of official pandemic numbers would have been "providential" to his own interests.