Jair Bolsonaro has created a committee to fight the choir …

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro lowered his tone and announced on Wednesday the creation of a national committee to fight the coronavirus, which has been racking up records of infections and deaths in the country for days. Pressed by the biggest cacerolazo recorded to date against his administration, the far-right leader met with the authorities of Parliament, the Supreme Court and some governors to announce a “national pact” at the worst time of the health crisis.

Despite the continued defense of preventive treatments against the coronavirus, without mentioning hydroxychloroquine, Bolsonaro then adopted a pro-vaccine rhetoric and guaranteed the country will have the 500 million doses needed in the second half of the year. Now the president believes it is time for more “coordination” between the different powers, a day after the Supreme Court rejected its latest attempt to curb measures taken in various regions to tackle the pandemic.

“A coordination will be created with the governors, in collaboration with the Congress. For our part, the committee will meet every week”, declared Bolsonaro. without removing his mask in a short speech from Brasilia. The Brazilian president stressed that “life comes first” but He has not shown he will defend measures such as social distancing or investing in vaccines and hospital supplies, when health centers in at least six states have already collapsed..

Bolsonaro also stressed the importance of mass vaccination, although he again cited the so-called “early treatment” for covid-19, which includes a number of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine. During the meeting, the governors responded to the president by arguing that the defense of preventive treatment must be based on scientific evidence.

After spending long months denying the seriousness of covid-19, even claiming that it was a “fluzinha”, the president on Wednesday justified his alarm against the greater strength of the new strain of the virus. “It is a still unknown disease. A new strain has appeared and obviously we are more and more concerned with providing proper care“, Held.

The apparent change of position of the Brazilian president has been questioned by some personalities such as the governor of São Paulo, Joao doria, a former ally and now fierce opponent of Bolsonaro. Doria joked about the creation of the committee and told reporters that the president’s example of encouraging crowds would be something akin to “a death pact”.

From the headquarters of the Butantan Institute, which conditions and advances local vaccine production against the coronavirus from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac, Doria also criticized Bolsonaro’s speech broadcast on the channel on radio and television on Tuesday evenings, which he described as a “disguise to deceive the country”.

Brazilians rocked the pans on Tuesday in cities like Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo or Manaus, after a short national broadcast from the president in which he tried to explain the health crisis and said his country was “one of the most vaccinated in the world. ” “Fora Bolsonaro” and “Genocida” have been the most repeated slogans in the biggest social reaction since the far-right benchmark has been in power.

Brazil is the second country in the world most affected by the pandemic behind the United States. Since the first contagion was recorded, the South American giant has recorded 12,130,019 cases and killed nearly 300,000. With the new P1 variant appearing in November last year, the escalation of cases in the country is out of control and the supply of oxygen has become one of the greatest emergencies.