Brazil’s Bolsonaro blames as toll spirals
With Brazil emerging as one of the world’s most infected countries, President Jair Bolsonaro is deflecting all responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media.
By contrast, he portrays himself as a clear-eyed crusader willing to defend an unpopular idea — that shutting down the economy will cause more suffering than allowing the disease to run its course.
Asked about Brazil’s death toll surpassing China’s, he feigned impotence: “I don’t work miracles. What do you want me to do?” Confronted with a travel ban imposed on Brazil by the United States because of widespread Covid-19, one of his advisers called it press hysteria.
Since the outbreak started, the Brazilian leader has avoided acknowledging the potential effects of his actions, particularly in undermining local leaders’ stay-at-home recommendations. A rare exception came in mid-April, as Bolsonaro appointed a new health minister tasked with sparing the economy from coronavirus.
“Reopening commerce is a risk I run because, if it [ the virus] gets worse, then it lands in my lap,” Bolsonaro said.
Less than two weeks later, as Brazil’s death toll blew past 5000, he told reporters: “You’re not going to put on my lap this count that isn’t mine.”
Almost a month on, the death toll in the country of 211 million has more than quadrupled, to 22,666, and continues to accelerate.
The Brazilian Supreme Court determined that states and cities have jurisdiction to impose isolation measures. So Bolsonaro on May 7 walked across the capital’s Three Powers Plaza to the top court, a cluster of ministers and business leaders in tow, and demanded local restrictions be tempered.
When governors defied Bolsonaro’s subsequent decree that gyms, barbershops and beauty salons be allowed to operate as essential services, he accused them of undermining the rule of law and suggested the move would invite “undesirable authoritarianism to emerge in Brazil”.
Latin America’s largest nation has confirmed 363,000 Covid-19 cases, more than any nation except the US, and experts say that figure is a significant undercount due to insufficient testing. Brazil’s underfunded hospitals are on the brink of collapse in multiple states.
The far-right leader fired his first health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, for supporting governors’ restrictions.
Bolsonaro’s second minister, Nelson Teich, resigned about a month later after openly disagreeing with him over chloroquine, the predecessor of the anti-malarial touted by US President Donald Trump. The country still has only an interim health minister: a general with no health experience.
In the capital on Monday, proBolsonaro supporters staged a sparse demonstration in front of the presidential palace, as they have for several weeks. Bolsonaro joined and once again lifted children in his arms. That same day, Trump prohibited entry to the US of foreigners coming from Brazil.
Bolsonaro’s special adviser on international affairs, Filipe Martins, tweeted that the ban was the natural result of Brazil’s large population.
“Ignore the hysteria from the press,” he said.
Upon leaving the presidential residence yesterday, Bolsonaro declined to answer reporters’ questions. One supporter begged him to launch a “massive propaganda” campaign to improve his negative image abroad.
“The global press is leftist,” Bolsonaro explained coolly, then outstretched his arm fully to point at journalists.
After Bolsonaro got into his car, his supporters turned towards reporters, blasting them as “trash” and “communists”, making obscene gestures and threats.