Bird bite deepens Bolsonaro’s isolation blues

JAIR BOLSONARO, Brazil’s “strongman” populist president, has reportedly been bitten while trying to feed an emu-like bird during his coronavirus quarantine at the presidential palace in Brasilia.

According to local media outlet Metropóles, Mr Bolsonaro was “pecked” by a rhea bird while he was out on an afternoon stroll.

The rhea is a large, flightless bird, native to South America and related both to ostriches and emus. The Estadão

newspaper published a series of photos showing Mr Bolsonaro wearing a coronavirus mask and reaching out to feed a flock of birds before withdrawing his hand quickly.

Critics of Mr Bolsonaro, a divisive Right-wing figure within Brazilian politics, quickly seized on the incident. “100 per cent rhea,” Jandira Feghali, a Communist Party congresswoman, posted on Facebook. “Even the animals recognise when someone is pernicious,” said journalist Solange Mateus.

Mr Bolsonaro has been heavily criticised for failing to take the Covid-19 pandemic seriously, even while Brazil has one of the world’s highest death tolls. He has been self-isolating at the Alvorada Palace since July 7 when he tested positive for Covid-19, an infection which he has repeatedly dismissed as nothing more than a “little flu”.

In an interview with CNN Brazil, he announced that he would take another test as he “can’t stand” being in isolation. The results of the second test have not yet been publicly announced.

So far, Brazil has suffered 1.93 million cases and nearly 75,000 deaths as a result of the pandemic.