COVID cases in Brazil peak, while Bolsonaro continues in denial

By Roberto Morejón

Brazil continues to be the focus of attention of the international community due to the serious impact of the pandemic, accentuated by the denial of the ultra-right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro.

The increase in cases caused by the Omicron variant led Brazilian hospitals to their worst situation since June 2021, with seven states in the country having 80 percent or more of the beds occupied in Intensive Care Units.

At present, more than 1.7 million active cases are reported and the number of deaths exceeded 623,000.  

With thousands of doctors and nurses isolated by COVID-19, an exhausted health system and a shortage of resources for diagnostic tests, everything points to the South American giant remaining on the negative lists of the highest incidence of respiratory disease in the world.

Brazil ranks second among the nations with the highest number of deaths from this cause, only surpassed by the United States, and third in number of infections, preceded by the North American nation and India.

While the crisis worsens, Bolsonaro promotes unproven treatments against SARS-Cov-2, as a supposed alternative in the absence of a thoughtful plan to contain the scourge of humanity.

It is true that regardless of Bolsonaro's anti-vaccine recommendations, 67 percent of the population managed to inject themselves.

But the ruler still verges on the absurd, as when he recently expressed that the omicron variant is welcome because it would indicate, he said, the end of the pandemic.

The statesman brags about not having been vaccinated after considering at some point that the biologics leave people more prone to contract AIDS.

With his erratic oratory and policies, the country is late to immunize children between five and 11 years of age, accredited by the local regulatory agency, but only authorized twenty days later by the government.

It is painful to observe how the ruler of the Portuguese-speaking nation deviates from the trends advised for the fight against a pandemic that overwhelms Humanity, to which rationality must be applied, under the guidance of scientists and health authorities.