While Brazilians wait for a vaccine, Bolsonaro plays politics
Tags: Covid 19, Bolsonaro, Brazil, Vaccines

As an early Christmas gift for some people, Chile and Mexico began immunizations on Thursday after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was urgently approved. But in Brazil, the death toll from Covid-19 is much higher, and it may take months to save lives ,the Brazilian Ministry of Health announced last week that vaccination will start in February 2021.

Carla Domingues, an epidemiologist and former coordinator of Brazil’s National Immunization Program, said she was very disappointed by how far Brazil seemed to be behind in catching up with herd immunity. .

She said that due to Brazil’s good record of vaccinating nationwide, there is a general hope that Brazilians will have a regional advantage in the fight against the pandemic.

“The Brazilian country is a continental country with very large intercontinental differences, such as Sao Paulo with a high population density and the remote Amazon River. We will still achieve high vaccine coverage, (and) indigenous people.” She said.

She said: “It is expected that Brazil’s vaccination program will start early.” But “other countries in the Americas that are ready have already started vaccination, and Brazil has fallen behind.”

Covid-19 killed nearly 190,000 people there, which is the highest death toll reported globally after the United States. However, President Jair Bolsonaro is in Brazil, and the virus rages every day, which is a fatal price. (Jair Bolsonaro) Publicly speculated about the urgency of vaccines and despised the “rush to buy vaccines.”

According to CNN Brasil, the pandemic is indeed over, and the numbers show that we are now dealing with a small increase. “But there is no reason to rush to buy vaccines because you are playing with other people’s lives.”

Since 7.4 million people in Brazil have been diagnosed with the Covid-19 virus implanted, and new variants of this virus have appeared abroad, there is no reason to believe that the pandemic is fading-even if the number of cases continues to increase.

President Jair Bolsonaro warned: “If you become a crocodile, that’s your problem.” “If you become a superman, or have a beard like a woman,” the Brazilian president also made headlines last week, trying to express a potential alias for Pfizer vaccine doubt. Or if a man’s voice is very high, it doesn’t matter to me… or worse, it interferes with people’s immune systems. ”

Dominguez believes that the Brazilian federal government is not ready to use the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after the federal government supports the vaccine of Oxford University and AstraZeneca in cooperation with the local foundation Fiocruz. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Health last week, Brazil has agreed to purchase more than 1 billion doses of this vaccine, which is still under development.

In 2021, the Bolsonaro government obtained nearly 43 million doses of vaccines through the COVAX facility and has signed a memorandum of understanding to obtain 70 million doses of vaccines from Pfizer and another 38 million doses from Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen. However, according to the Ministry of Health’s statement, most doses of the latter two vaccines are not expected to be available until the end of this year.

Dominguez initially said: “The Ministry of Health strives to be cautious, only agreeing to purchase vaccines in AstraZeneca laboratories, and is not prepared to receive new vaccines that need to be stored below 70.” Pfizer’s vaccines must be stored at extremely low levels. The temperature is approximately minus 75 degrees Celsius-50 degrees Celsius lower than any vaccine used in the United States before the pandemic.

In fact, after a year of fierce conflict between Bolsonaro and the governor over the country’s pandemic response, there are still alternatives to the influence of politics on this process.

The President did not hesitate to choose the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine instead of the vaccine developed by the Chinese manufacturer Sinovac Biotech, which is supported by the State of São Paulo and developed locally by the Brazilian laboratory Butantan Institute.

Contrary to the assurances of Brazil’s Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello and other officials, the federal government welcomes any vaccine approved by the health regulators. Bolsonaro vowed on Facebook not to buy Chinese-made vaccines. and his political supporters are inciting hatred of external psychology and surrounding fears.

Brazil’s health regulator ANVISA has not approved any vaccines, and the country’s Supreme Court and Congress leaders have acted under pressure. Dominguez said she believes that the agency’s experts and officials “will not accept politeness from any major interference from any aspect in assessing the science and safety of each candidate”.

However, ordinary Brazilians may not be immune from harm, especially when it comes from the highest level of government. Like many countries, the anti-vaxxer movement in Brazil has been developing for many years. In addition to raising people’s suspicion of certain vaccines and eliminating the severity of the virus itself.

ANVISA and the Brazilian Ministry of Health did not respond to requests for comment.