Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, one of the world’s most skeptical leaders in relation to the pandemic, said today that the “best vaccine” against covid-19 is the virus itself, which has already killed almost 190,000 people in the country.
“I had the best vaccine: it was the virus. And with no side effect, ”said Bolsonaro – who contracted the new coronavirus and has already recovered from the disease – to a group of supporters, the vast majority without a mask, during his visit to the city of São Francisco do Sul, in the state of Santa Catarina, on the border with Argentina.
As he has done in the past few days, Bolsonaro has met with supporters again without resorting to the use of protective equipment against the covid-19 and even declared to one of his followers that he “does not use” this type of material.
The head of state usually meets with his ministers, participates in public events and receives supporters outside the Palácio da Alvorada, his official residence in Brasília, without wearing a mask or maintaining social distance.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil, officially registered in the country in February, Bolsonaro has on several occasions minimized the severity of the new coronavirus, which he came to classify as “gripezinha”, although he recognized last week that there were “extrapolations or exaggerations” in order to find a solution to the pandemic.
The far-right leader also defended the use of treatments without scientific evidence to fight the disease, such as hydroxychloroquine, and, more recently, he opposed the mandatory vaccine, which was ultimately determined by the country’s Supreme Court.
This week, Bolsonaro ironically criticized the vaccine from the Pfizer-BionTech consortium (United States-Germany), saying that the manufacturer exempted itself from responsibility for the possible side effects of the immunizer.
“There, in the Pfizer contract, it’s very clear: we [Pfizer] are not responsible for any side effects. If you become an alligator, the problem is yours ”, published the head of state on the social network Twitter.
Brazil is the Portuguese-speaking country most affected by the pandemic and one of the hardest hit in the world, when it accounts for the second highest number of deaths (189,220 and more than 7.3 million cases), after the United States.
The covid-19 pandemic caused at least 1,718,209 deaths resulting from more than 77.9 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.
