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World

Bolsenarios’s

COVID 19 stance

he dismissive stance of Brazil’s President with overcrowded cities, Brazil has over threat, calling it a ”little flu” in almost the
TJair Bolsonaro, toward the COVID-19 the last few weeks seen large increases of same manner as president Trump. He even
pandemic has angered health experts in his infections and deaths, yet the pandemic has questioned the official statistics from his
country and astounded the world. He fired not yet reached its peak. own government, blaming governors for
his health minister, early March, following Brazil is the largest country in Latin manipulating numbers for political reasons.
a series of disagreements over the response America, with a population is estimated at Earlier, Bolsonaro and Mandetta had clashed
the country was taking to contain its spread 212,228,418 according to the latest United for weeks over the need for widespread social
in South America’s most populous country. Nations data. It is a federal state divided into isolation, the president arguing the measures
Luiz Henrique Mandetta, an orthopedist, sub-national (states entities) with a certain were unnecessary and economically harmful,
who had mobilized support from state degree of autonomy (self-government and and insisting the outbreak was being blown
governors and heath officials in handling of self-regulation) and endowed with their own out of proportion.
the pandemic that included promotion of government and constitution, which together Moreover, in a very strange twist, the right-
broad isolation measures at state level and in form the Federative Republic of Brazil. wing leader, in his true form, joined a protest
municipalities. His dismissal coming as the It is this governance architecture that outside army headquarters in Brasilia, the
new coronavirus outbreak in Brazil was on has enabled the governors to respond to country’s capital were protesters were calling
the upward trend. the outbreak independently without the for a military intervention and demanding
The president is said to have been irked by presidents’ leadership, and opposing actions an end to the lockdown measures by state
the idea of the stringent measures that the inimical to the normal globally. The country governors in the country—which Bolsonaro
minister and the governors were instituting has 26 states (estados) and one federal district opposes. At the protest rally, Bolsenario was
in the face of what he thinks is hysteria about (distrito federal). filmed coughing several times and was not
nothing. Bolsenario believes the corona virus In early March, as the coronavirus snowballed wearing a mask, raising fears over his health,
is nothing more than a common flu that into a pandemic, sending panic around the amidst rumors he was positive.
should pass with change of seasons. world, Bolsonaro traveled to the United
Being cheered on by supporters, including States to meet with President Trump at Mar- Bolsonaro has referred to the coronavirus as
the “flu like” and scoffed at social distancing
many of his political elite, the president has a-Lago in Florida. At the time, both leaders measures intended to slow the spread of the
behaved like nothing is happening, amidst had been questioning the seriousness of the
deaths and suffering. He has been so reckless virus. The Mar-a- Lago meeting was later to virus, proclaiming in late March that ‘we will
that during unscheduled trip to the city of turn out to have been as a contagion, with all die one day” calling on citizens to go back
Cristalina, Goiás, located on the outskirts many of those who attended testing positive to work, contradicting the orders by state
of the capital Brasilia- the president had for the virus. governors and recommendations officials.
breakfast with supporters, shaking hand and Bolsonaro’s reckless response to the outbreak
hogging several of them without wearing a US officials who attended the meeting, as has undermined his country’s ability to
mask. did Bolsonaro’s top aide, tested positive for respond effectively drawing outrage, both
According to the Brazilian Health Ministry, the virus. Later, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo locally and globally, with the country’s
had intimated to a US media house that his
data, as at May 2, infections had reached father had tested positive: a report he later opposition, attacking him for his mishandling
96,559 and 6,750 deaths, placing the country denied. Reacting ti the reports, Bolsonaro of the outbreak.
seventh overall with the most victims in the later released an official statement saying he’d Meanwhile, Brazil’s Supreme Court has
world, and also having the continent’s worst tested negative, and blamed the media for authorized an investigation of alleged
outbreak. falsehood and that it was all fake news. corruption and obstruction of justice by
The toll however, could certainly be higher And although later, he had praised the President Jair Bolsonaro after the country’s
as the country lacks the capacity for large- World Health Organization for acting outgoing justice minister accused him of
scale testing, as elsewhere globally. Brazilian responsibly when it declared the coronavirus attempting to interfere with federal police
medical researchers estimate that the a pandemic, and even discouraged a rally probes. This is threatening to plunge the
country’s corona cases could be 10 times of his supporters, Bolsonaro soon, started country into a political crisis in the middle
higher than officially declared. In a country downplaying the severity of the corona virus of a pandemic.

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