President JairBolsonaro said ThursdayBrazil was at the “tail end” of the coronavirus pandemic, despite a surge in infections and deaths that many experts are calling a second wave, reports AFP.
“We’re at the tail end of the pandemic. Compared to other countries in theworld, our government was the best, or one of the best, in handling it,” thefar-right president said on a visit to the southern city of Porto Alegre.
The comment came in for criticism from his opponents in Brazil, whereCovid-19 has killed nearly 180,000 people, the second-highest death tollworldwide, after the United States.
The government’s own figures lend little support to the president’sassessment.
Brazil, which endured a brutal plateau of more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths aday from June to August, had succeeded in bringing its average daily deathtoll down to about 300 last month.
However, that number has again risen above 800 this week.
Intensive care units at public hospitals in Rio de Janeiro are meanwhile100 percent full, and preparations for an eventual vaccination campaign havebeen caught up in a political battle between Bolsonaro and a likely adversaryin the 2022 presidential race, Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria.
Bolsonaro has been at odds with health experts over how to respond to thepandemic.
He has downplayed the new coronavirus as a “little flu,” condemned the“hysteria” around it and pushed to use the drug hydroxychloroquine againstCovid-19, despite a raft of studies showing it is ineffective.
