Bolsonaro, in front of a caravan of motorcycles, …

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro led a huge biker caravan in Brasilia on Sunday without respecting social distancing measures or wearing a mask. in a country that continues to suffer from the adverse effects of the coronavirus. Surrounded by a strong security operation, the 66-year-old president left Alvorada Palace with hundreds of supporters to tour the center of the country’s capital for an hour.

At the end of the visit, Bolsoon hailed his maskless supporters, once again contradicting health recommendations to contain the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 420,000 Brazilians. From there and to celebrate Mother’s Day, he again praised the role of the military and declared that his motto and that of his constituents is “God, country and family”. The controversial act takes place amid the commission installed in the Senate to investigate possible “omissions” by the Bolsonaro government in the fight against the pandemic.

“We had a very serious problem last year, something that nobody expected, the pandemic, but little by little we are winning. You can be sure: as the supreme commander of the armed forces, my army will never take to the streets to keep you inside.Bolsonaro told his supporters, concentrated on the outskirts of the Alvorada Palace. Both initially and upon arrival at the official residence, a military orchestra was the soundtrack of the president’s tour.

“It is not a political demonstration but a demonstration of love for the country, it is a demonstration of all those who want above all peace, tranquility and freedom”Bolsonaro noted. “There is nothing more sacred for a man and a woman than to guarantee and to have their freedom”, insisted the head of state.

At the end of the tour, Bolsonaro, a fervent critic of social confinement to deal with the pandemic, photographed himself, shook hands with dozens of followers who, like him, did not wear chinstrap and thanked “support for a government that largely identifies with the military”.

He also re-insisted on the need to implement the printed vote in front of the current electronic ballot boxes for the next elections, which will take place in October 2022 and to which he intends to stand. “Our motto is God, homeland and family. It bothers a lot of people, but we know this is the essence of all of us.”, he condemned.

“I am attending the event to support everything the government has done over the past two years to save Brazil,” said Carlos Toledo, 61., after participating in the caravan in which many bikers carried the Brazilian flag, which has become a symbol of pro-Bolsonaro mobilizations.

On May 1, supporters of the far-right president staged massive marches and motorized caravans in cities like Brasilia, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, just three days before the Senate commission to begin investigating government actions to deal with pandemic in Brazil.

In his statement to the Senate on Tuesday, former minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, sacked in April 2020 for advocating social distancing to contain the virus He claimed to have alerted President Bolsonaro “systematically” to the “very serious consequences” of his positions in the face of the pandemic.

The next day former minister Nelson Teich, who arrived in Mandetta for almost a month, said his resignation from the Health portfolio was due to pressure from the president to prescribe chloroquine for covid-19, although it is an ineffective and potentially dangerous remedy for the virus.

For next Friday, the statement of former minister Eduardo Pazuello, a military fired in March amid strong criticism of his management, mainly due to Brazil’s delay in negotiating vaccines, is expected.

In the past week, Brazil, one of the countries most affected by covid-19, has reported an average of 60,000 infected and 2,100 deaths from coronavirus. Since the start of the health crisis, it has accumulated more than 15.1 million positive cases and 420,000 deaths linked to the disease. Although over the past month the number of infections and casualties has declined slightly, the tendency to slow down is still weak and the virus remains uncontrollable over a large part of the national territory.

Last Friday, the Secretary of Health of the State of Rio de Janeiro discovered that the Manaus strain, central protagonist of the health collapse in Brazil since February, had a mutation and generated a new variant of the coronavirus. The variant was named P.1.2 because it was a mutation of P1, which appeared the capital of the state of Amazonas last November, and although so far it cannot be said whether it is more contagious or deadly than the previous one, it is a new source of concern for scientists and agents of health.