Brazil's President Bolsonaro Sacks Coronavirus Health Minister
|Apr 16, 2020,05:17pm EDT
Kenneth Rapoza Senior Contributor
t took a week longer than expected, but Brazil’s Health Minister, Luiz Enrique Mandetta, was fired on Thursday in the middle of Brazil’s worse public health scare since the zika virus outbreak in 2015-16 that infected more than 300,000 people in that period.
President Jair Bolsonaro had been locking horns with Mandetta ever since the new SARS coronavirus began claiming new victims. Brazil is the most infected country in Latin America thus far with 30,425 case, based on data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Over 1,920 people have died. Brazil is yet to reach peak infection curve.
Mandetta wanted a coordinated national lockdown. Bolsonaro did not. Some states were taking matters into their own hands, canceling school and even going so far as to ban interstate transit for commercial vehicles.
Truckers delivering food were banned from crossing state lines between Sao Paulo and Rio. On Brazil’s Whatsapp, people were sharing images of truckers actually dumping fruits and vegetables on the side of the road in a sign of protest against the crazy interstate commercial travel restrictions late last month.
More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2020/04/16/brazils-president-bolsonaro-sacks-coronavirus-health-minister/#65dd417d7c90
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In this March 18, 2019 file photo, Brazil's Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, right, gives anti-bacterial gel to President Jair Bolsonaro as they give a press conference on the new coronavirus at Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil. Andre Borges — AP
BY DAVID BILLER AND MAURICIO SAVARESE / AP APRIL 16, 2020 4:50 PM EDT
(RIO DE JANEIRO) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after a series of disagreements over government efforts to contain the new coronavirus. “I just heard from the President Jair Bolsonaro the news of my dismissal from the health ministry,” Luiz Henrique Mandetta posted on his verified Twitter profile, adding that he wished success to his replacement, who is yet to be named officially. He confirmed the announcement in a press conference later.
Mandetta, a doctor, garnered popular support for his pandemic response that included promotion of broad isolation measures enacted by state governors. Bolsonaro, for his part, repeatedly characterized the virus as a “little flu,” said shutting down the economy would cause more damage than confining only high-risk Brazilians, and touted the yet-unproven efficacy of an anti-malarial drug.
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Mandetta has drawn comparisons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Donald Trump’s top virus expert. Fauci and Mandetta have often made public statements about the virus that differed with those of their bosses. Afterward, Bolsonaro and Trump’s bases each took to Twitter to call for removal of their country’s top health official. The White House has said this week that Fauci’s job is secure.
Republicans close to the White House say Trump has complained about Fauci’s positive media attention and sought to leave him out of task force briefings. Bolsonaro, likewise, had convened doctors without inviting Mandetta and, in a televised interview earlier this month, said Mandetta had failed to show “humility.” A few days later, on April 5, Bolsonaro told a group of supporters that he would act against officials in his government who “are full of themselves.”
More:
https://time.com/5822926/bolsonaro-fires-health-minister-coronavirus/
Also posted in LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142472443
