Amidst a surge of COVID cases and deaths in Brazil that have brought its healthcare system to the brink of collapse, President Jair Bolsonaro has told its citizens to “stop whining”, saying that the country must balance economic concerns against controlling the pandemic.
According to Brazil’s health ministry, the country has suffered 260 000 deaths from the virus, the second highest in the world after the United States.
“Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?” Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. “How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution.”
In order to stave off further disaster, a number of local governments have started taking matters into their own hands by imposing their own curfews and other social distancing measures.
São Paulo’s governor, João Doria, who has been particularly critical of Mr Bolsonaro’s response to the pandemic, called President Bolsonaro “a crazy guy” for attacking “governors and mayors who want to buy vaccines and help the country to end this pandemic”.
“How can we face the problem, seeing people die every day? The health system in Brazil is on the verge of collapse,” Mr Doria said.
This comes as a Duke University scientist, another Bolsonaro critic, warned of the danger of another quarter of a million deaths, and called for an immediate lockdown to help control the situation.
The situation is exacerbated by the emergence of the P.1 variant which emerged in Manaus, and has high transmissibility and the capability to evade immunity, having a 25% to 60% chance of reinfecting an immune individual.
Source: BBC News
