Brazilian MP who proposed anti-vaccination law died of COVID-19

A regional deputy who proposed a bill to the Legislative Assembly of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul last February to prevent the compulsory vaccination of the population against COVID died this Saturday victim of the disease.

The legislator Silvio Antonio Favero, who shared with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro his doubts about the effectiveness and safety of COVID vaccines, has died in the hospital he had been admitted to since Thursday of last week due to complications from the virus, reported his relatives.

Favero, 54, was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Mato Grosso do Sul for the Social Liberal Party (PSL), the same formation through which Bolsonaro was elected president in 2018 and from which he disassociated himself last year due to differences with their leaders. .

The regional legislator He shared on his social networks the publications in which the leader of the Brazilian far right clearly expresses his denial of the gravity of the pandemic, his mistrust of vaccines and his rejection of social distancing measures.

Last February, Favero introduced a bill to the legislature of Mato Grosso do Sul to “guarantee the right of citizens to decide whether or not they want to be vaccinated”.

This position is shared by Bolsonaro, who has previously warned that vaccination is not compulsory in Brazil despite the fact that the Supreme Court has authorized regional and municipal governments to impose sanctions on those who refuse to be immunized, such as making it difficult for them to access public services.

According to the text of the law of the bill he presented, “currently there is no total safety on the safety of vaccines, because possible collateral effects can offer an irreparable risk in the medium and long term which so far is unknown “.

Brazil, the current global epicenter of the COVID pandemic, has recorded 1,986 new deaths from the disease in the past 24 hours, as well the average number of deaths last week was over 1,800 per day for the first time since the start of the health crisis.

According to the Health Ministry, Brazil has accumulated 277,091 deaths since the start of the pandemic as of Saturday, having recorded the four deadliest days since the start of the pandemic between Wednesday and Saturday.

The South American giant has accumulated 11,438,935 infected, displacing India from second place on the list of countries with the most cases of the disease. The Asian country was since September last year the second most affected country by the pandemic after the United States, but it represented only 24,882 new cases on Saturday, bringing its cumulative to today (11,333 728) below the Brazilian.

Brazil was already the second country in number of deaths from COVID, only surpassed by the United States.

The high averages of recent days confirm that Brazil is currently experiencing a second wave of the pandemic, more virulent and deadly than the first, in part caused by the circulation of new strains of the virus, among which the Brazilian variant originating in the Amazon and which the researchers say is three times more contagious than the original.

And while the pandemic is progressing rapidly, vaccination continues its slow process and, this Saturday, only 10 million Brazilians, or 4.7% of the population, had received the first dose of the antidote.

(With information from EFE)

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