Jair Bolsonaro: two hundred thousand dead and “the life …

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro regretted on Thursday that the country had reached the 200,000 mark killed by covid-19, but affirmed that “life goes on” and again criticized the social isolation measures adopted by states and cities to contain the advance of the coronavirus. “We regret, today we are beating 200,000 dead. Many of these deaths to covid, others to covid ”, but“ life goes on, we deeply regret it, ”the president said during a live broadcast on his social networks, which also counted with the participation of the minister of Health, Eduardo Pazuello.

Brazil, one of the global epicenters of the coronavirus pandemic, passed 200,000 deaths on Thursday and confirmed its position as the second country with the most covid deaths in the world, after the United States, at a time when he goes through a second wave of the health emergency without having overcome the first. The health threat is such that this Friday the representatives of two vaccines requested the authorization of the Brazilian government to start an emergency vaccination.

Deploring the toll reached, Bolsonaro, one of the world’s most deniers of the seriousness of the disease, also expressed his concern for his 93-year-old mother, while specifying that “we must face it” (the virus).

“It is not enough to continue this old story of” staying at home, we will see the economy later. “It will not work, it will be chaos in Brazil,” said the president, critically at the new restrictive measures. and the distancing adopted by various states and municipalities in the face of the growing escalation of deaths and infections, which now number nearly eight million nationwide. He added that a new lockdown could “lead to conditions even more dramatic than the consequences of the virus.” But then he clarified: “We cannot become a country of the poor, a country of the unemployed, without GDP, in debt. A country as rich as ours with a population impoverished by the decisions of some.”

According to the most recent data from the Ministry of Health, Brazil on Thursday recorded a record 87,843 new cases, the highest in a day since the first contagion on February 26 last year, when it recorded 1,524 new deaths, the second highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic. The records of deaths and infections come at a time when the South American giant still does not define the date of the start of the vaccination campaign against the covid, although Bolsonaro and his chief of health reinforced this Thursday that it could start on January 20. .

Likewise, the president stressed that his government will offer citizens, free of charge and voluntarily, any vaccine approved by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa, regulator), regardless of its origin.

However, the far-right leader has once again rejected the mandatory nature of vaccination and questioned the effectiveness and scientific verification of antidotes.
“I am not campaigning against the vaccine, nor for. It is a matter of awareness. Some people think that a mass vaccination campaign must be carried out. The campaign (will be) of clarification, and you, at the top, decide if she’s going to take the vaccine or not, ”Bolsonaro said.

Meanwhile, Chinese vaccines Coronavac and Oxford / Astrazeneca made the first requests for authorization for their emergency use in Brazil on Friday, where the coronavirus pandemic has already claimed more than 200,000 lives.

The requests were presented to the health regulatory agency (Anvisa), which must give a response within ten days, “not to mention the possible length of time the process may be pending information. [suplementarias]”the entity said in a statement.

Both have been the subject of clinical trials in Brazil, with local partners, who processed the authorization requests: the Butantan Institute in the case of CoronaVac and the Fiocruz Foundation in that of the vaccine developed by the British laboratory AstraZeneca with the University of Oxford.

The Butantan Institute in the state of Sao Paulo, the main vaccine producer in Latin America, reported on Thursday that the efficacy of Coronavac in the Brazilian trial was 78% in mild cases and 100% in moderate cases. and severe. . The governor of Sao Paulo announced Thursday his request for authorization for the emergency use of the Chinese vaccine CoronaVac in Brazil, in order to begin vaccination on January 25. “This is a historic moment,” Governor Joao Doria said, referring to what would be Brazil’s first pandemic vaccine request.

Dimas Covas, director of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, said that to date 12,476 doctors and nurses have participated as volunteers in the tests which began in June. “No volunteer who received the vaccine was hospitalized,” said Covas, who described the vaccine as “excellent”. “We need it to reach people’s arms,” ​​he added, raising his voice.

The agreement between the Butantan Institute and Sinovac provides for the sending of doses to Brazil and the transfer of technology for the local production of the vaccine. Beijing has already sent Sao Paulo 10.7 million doses and supplies to manufacture an additional 40 million doses. Brazil’s largest state, with 44 million people, tops the national rankings in absolute numbers with 1.5 million infections and 47,511 deaths from the pandemic.

Bolsonaro even questioned the butantan vaccine, promoted by Doria, one of his possible opponents in the 2022 elections.