By Dario Pignotti, on January 17, 2021
Which side of the rope are you on? Photo: Aloisio Mauricio
From another world Jair Bolsonaro laughed out loud during his meeting today with a group of supporters with whom he spoke on several topics, one of which, to which he devoted less than three minutes, was the coronavirus crisis in the state of Amazonas, where the health system collapsed with patients dying from lack of oxygen.
The Brazilian president’s argument was the same as always, that there is little or nothing to be done about an ailment that will inexorably cause the death of the elderly or people with chronic ailments. “It is the law of life.” In that sense today he held responsible the people who wait until the last moment to go to the hospital when they feel “short of breath”. In other words: the blame lies with the patients, not with the collapsed hospital system due to a health policy that disregarded the problem.
Since his meeting with Donald Trump in Florida in March, his argument, copied like so many things from his colleague, was summed up in a couple of diminutives: the Covid-19 is a “little crack”, a “little cold”. In April members of the Brazilian government predicted that the days of the pandemic were numbered. This Friday he retraced his steps when he angrily declared that “it was not me who spoke of the “gripeta” (flue), and accused the press of distorting his words. But videos of more than a dozen statements indicate that the press did not alter what he said. In fact, he even said it during a solemn broadcast on national radio and television.
The situation in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas, is tough, he admitted. But he attributed it to the irresponsibility of the local authorities since the federal government would have fulfilled its responsibility. General Eduardo Pazuello, a health minister with no medical training, said the same yesterday, as did the top officials of that ministry, who turned their backs on the pandemic. Bolsonaro and Pazuello recommended that those infected in the Amazon take hydroxychloroquine, a drug for lupus and rheumatism that was not designed for Covid-19.
As evangelical pastors often do, the ex-captain-president usually cites anecdotes of dubious veracity, designed for an audience of believers willing to trust the biblical word rather than an audience of citizens. In this style he told how he contracted the virus in July and was healed thanks to hydroxychloroquine, and that the same drug was prescribed for two hundred civil servants and employees of the Planalto Palace.
The drug is not recommended for patients with coronaviruses according to the World Health Organization, whose authorities have drawn attention to the ruler’s pharmacological eccentricities. For its part, Human Right Watch this week described him as someone who “sabotages” the policies against the virus.
Beyond the parallel reality of Bolsonaism, images of patients’ relatives going to buy oxygen tubes (sometimes on the black market that monopolizes them) were reproduced on local television and global news channels.
Workers digging graves in Manaus’ cemeteries in double shifts became an icon of Brazil as told by newspapers such as The New York Times, Le Monde and Corriere della Sera. Brazil is the tragedy par excellence on a global scale, except in the presidential galaxy where his acolytes orbiting to meet him shout “myth” or cry “God be with you”.
The real events of this week may have made a dent in a more or less official part of public opinion, which is indifferent to the health tragedy. Due to this attitude of society and the complicity of the political right with the Planalto, none of the sixty requests for impeachment presented to the Congress, the last one promoted by the Workers’ Party, has been successful. The Petista leader, Gleisi Hoffmann, requested that the parliament hold emergency sessions, not to deal with impeachment, but to deal with the pandemic. A sign that the crisis may gain another dimension.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano-Cuba, translation, North American bureau