Covid in Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro asked the Court of …

The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, claimed the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the highest court in the land, ban coronavirus quarantines and restrictions in three states, arguing that the fundamental rights of movement and work are violated.

The legal appeal was presented Thursday evening against the quarantines in the states of Paraná, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte by the Attorney General of the Union (AGU).

Hours earlier, Bolsonaro had encouraged the army command to be ready to intervene “within the framework of the Constitution” in states and municipalities and to prevent, for example, measures such as nighttime curfews, despite the fact that the country is preparing for a possible threatened third wave. of a second collapse of a national hospital.

Quarantine and restriction decrees in these three states, according to the ordinance, must be declared unconstitutional. “We are faced with a violation of democratic principles, the rule of law, legality and proportionality, as well as an attack on fundamental rights to work, free initiative and subsistence, ”AGU said in a statement.

The order was placed on the same day as the federal laboratory Fiocruz, under the Ministry of Health, warned of the risk of an outbreak of infections in June, with 20 capitals occupying more than 80% of intensive care beds for patients with Covid-19.

“The damage that will be generated for economic sustenance and for the free movement of people is notorious,” said the president’s request on quarantines.
The reasons why these states were specifically targeted have not been explained.

Paraná, bordering the province of Misiones and Paraguay, enters a health collapse and it has 60 municipalities of the interior in total containment, even with the shutdown of supermarkets, for four days in some cases

It is governed by the Bolsonarista Carlos Massa Ratinho Junior, son of a famous television host Ratinho, who since February has joined quarantines due to the hospital collapse and people dying while waiting for a bed.

Massa is from the Social Democratic Party (PSD), whose leadership has given signs of alliance to Luiz Inácio Lula da SIlva should he run as a presidential candidate in the 2022 elections.

Pernambuco is ruled by the opposition and the centrist Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) and the Rio Grande do Norte by the only female governor, Fatima Bezerra, of the Workers’ Party (PT), also in opposition.

The AGU clarified that it does not intend to question the decisions of the STF which recognizes the autonomy of states and municipalities in taking measures against the pandemic, but said that “some of between them are not compatible with the constitutional precepts “.

Brazil is the second country in coronavirus deaths after the United States, with 456,674.