Jair Bolsonaro: “You can’t live with panic” | The…

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, asked the population on Wednesday not to panic with the death toll from the coroavirus, again rejected quarantines despite the collapse of the hospital system in various parts of the country because there will be deaths “from hunger and depression”, and he argued the government was doing the right thing by vaccinating against Covid-19. Meanwhile, the Brazilian economy has suffered a sharp decline due to the pandemic and its handling by the government.

“They have caused panic, the problem is right there in front of us. We’re sorry. But you cannot live with panic, again the policy of staying at home is not to die of hunger and depression“Said the far-right president, without commenting on the 4.1% drop in the economy in 2020, the largest in 30 years.

He did so during a dialogue with followers at the door of the official residence, the Palacio de la Alvorada, in front of whom he stressed that he was preparing a national channel to talk about the vaccination situation in the country and s ‘opposed the containment and restriction measures. governors and mayors.

Bolsonaro said that, in the face of the bad news, he decided to stop buying government newspapers and magazines. “I canceled all subscriptions, the official who wants to read, buy it with his money. For the media, the virus is me”, the president said a day after the 24-hour record of 1,641 deaths was reached, bringing the total to more than 257,000.

At least ten capitals are in critical condition due to lack of beds, with 90% occupancy of intensive care units for Covid-19 patients, in the worst crisis of the pandemic, affected by the speed of transmission, the time of hospitalization and the lethality of the P1 variant or Amazon strain, appeared in November in the city of Manaus. When asked if he was going to speak on a nationwide network, Bolsonaro said he could do so to Brazil, which is the country which in absolute terms vaccinates the most. “

He said 22 million vaccines would be available this month, and then around 40 million more. Brazil has already applied 7.2 million vaccines since January 17 and only Chinese CoronaVac and Anglo-Swedish AstraZeneca were allowed in an emergency. “We are doing our homework the right way,” the president said.

In turn, the economy of Brazil, Latin America’s largest and Argentina’s main partner, fell 4.1% in 2020, the worst result in three decades, due to the pandemic that has brings down the service sector, industry, investment and household consumption, although the agricultural sector has barely increased, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) reported on Wednesday.

The coronavirus pandemic was the main factor behind the decline in Brazilian GDP in 2020, halting sustained growth between 2017 and 2019 after a drop of 3.5% in 2015. The drop was almost half of the 9.5% forecast by the International Monetary Fund at the start of the pandemic. (IMF).

The IBGE also released the GDP for the fourth quarter of 2020, when it registered a growth of 3.2% compared to the previous quarter, which had marked an increase of 7.7%, which marks an economic slowdown. Precisely in this first quarter of 2021, states and municipalities are closing their economies due to a second wave of deaths and infections higher than the first.

Compared to the last quarter of 2019, the period between October and December fell 1.1%. GDP per capita was 35,172 reais ($ 6,200), a record drop of 4.8 percent. The service sector was the main culprit, accounting for nearly 60% of activity, down 4.5%. Industry was down 3.5% and the Household consumption fell to a record 5.5%.