Bolsonaro’s March visit with Trump was a ‘corona trip’
BRAZIL Brazil’s former health minister described Jair Bolsonaro’s March visit to meet with US President Donald Trump as a ‘corona trip’ wednesday, noting that several members of the Brazilian president’s team tested positive for COVID19 after the trip. Bolsonaro and his aides met with Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other American officials during their last US trip. Days later, Bolsonaro’s press secretary, Fabio Wajngarten, tested positive for COVID19. Several more members of Bolsonaro’s close circle contracted the virus soon after, raising concerns that the two presidents had been exposed as well. “What I know is that it was soon after (Bolsonaro) made a visit to the United States that they went to Florida and they were all having dinner with Mr. Trump, and his communication guy ... came back in the plane with the disease and from the people that went with him, 17 tested positive in about 15 days after they arrived,” Brazil’s former Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “So this trip was really a ‘corona trip’.” Bolsonaro tested negative for coronavirus in three separate exams that were released to the public on wednesday afternoon by Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski. The release of the tests, which were administered between march 12 and march 17 after his return from the US, brought an end to a prolonged standoff in which Bolsonaro had refused to make results public, despite repeated legal rulings. Despite several of his team contracting the virus, Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the threat of COVID-19. Mandetta was fired from his role as health minister on april 16, following disagreements with the populist leader over the government’s response to the outbreak.
(CNN)