Bolsonaro, criticized for a vaccination plan with …

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is criticized for the government’s plan, or for its absence, as his opponents denounce, vaccinate the population against covid-19.

Brazil, second country with the most deaths due to the pandemic, published this Sunday its vaccination plan with some gaps, like when will it start and how will they reach their goal of 70% of the population.

This was followed by a new wave of criticism of the far-right president, who has consistently rejected expert recommendations to contain the pandemic and who recently said he had no intention of to get vaccinated.

“Enough vaccine jokes!” Headed the country’s leading newspaper on the front page of its editorial, Newspaper. “President Jair Bolsonaro’s murderous stupidity in the face of the pandemic has crossed all limits,” he said.

Another newspaper he State of Sao PauloHe was equally harsh, condemning the government’s “deadly incompetence”.

“Faced with the worst health crisis of our time, the response of this government will be remembered as disastrous in all respects … even its vaccination plan,” he said.

The plan, which the Supreme Court has asked the government to present, calls for immunization in its first phase of around 14 million high-risk people, including health workers, the elderly and indigenous people.

In the next three phases, it is expected to reach 51.6 million inhabitants, or about 24 percent of the population of 212 million.

The plan plans to vaccinate more than 70% of citizens, but does not specify how this figure will be reached.

Judge’s orders start date

Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the government to set the start date for the vaccination campaign at 48 hours.

During, A group of public health experts whose names were in the plan said in a statement that they had not been consulted on the final text.

“We have never seen any version of this document,” said epidemiologist Ethel Maciel.

Other specialists openly criticized the plan.

“The health ministry is trying to pass off the people of Brazil and the Supreme Court like clowns,” tweeted microbiologist Natalia Pasternak, critic of the government’s response to the pandemic.

The scientist questions whether the plan contains 70 million doses of Pfizer while the government and the company are still negotiating the sale, and does not give information on how they will keep the vaccines at the required -70 degrees Celsius.

As the long wait for a COVID-19 vaccine comes to an end in other parts of the world, in Brazil, the question was strewn with a complicated political battle.

Bolsonaro’s anti-vaccination stance contrasts with that of San Pablo Governor Joao Doria, who appears to be one of the main candidates to challenge him in the 2022 presidential elections. Doria is pushing to start vaccinating people on January 25 with the CoronaVac vaccine, developed in China, that your state helps to test and produce.

Bolsonaro openly opposes the plan, ridiculing CoronaVac as “Joao Doria’s Chinese vaccine”.

Federal vaccination plan does not include CoronoVac

The dispute has grown into what some commentators call a “new vaccine revolt,” referring to a deadly 1904 uprising against smallpox vaccine in Rio de Janeiro.

The review comes the same day leaf released a survey that found 22% of Brazilians do not plan to be vaccinated against covid-19, up from 9% in August.

According to the Datafolha survey, 50% of Brazilians would not take a vaccine made in China, against 47% who said the opposite.

He also said Bolsonaro’s approval rating has remained stable despite the pandemic, at 37%, the same level as in August, and the highest rating in his tenure.

Bolsonaro, who has played down the new coronavirus as a “little flu,” said Thursday his country “is at the end of the pandemic.”

Experts, for their part, say it is going through a second wave. After a decline that lasted for more than two months, the curve of weekly deaths from covid-19 has risen significantly in recent weeks. The death toll in Brazil is 181,123 people, compared to 297,886 in the United States.