Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday criticized an ongoing Senate investigation into his handling of the record-breaking COVID-19 outbreak, which global health likened to a “raging hell. “
Supreme Court Justice Luis Roberto Barroso ruled Thursday afternoon that enough senators had signed a proposal for an investigation into the government’s reaction to the pandemic to open the investigation despite Senate leaders blocking it.
“This is a trap between Barroso and the leftists in the Senate to wear down the government,” Bolsonaro told supporters outside his residence, accusing the trial of “politics. “
A Senate investigation represents the most serious political outcome yet for Bolsonaro’s coronavirus strategy, which last year he turned into a “little flu” by ignoring fitness experts calling for mask-wearing and social distancing.
Bolsonaro has subsidized his complaints about COVID-19 vaccines, but he continues to attack governors seeking to implement lockdown measures and even softer measures, baselessly accusing them of killing more with those restrictions than the virus itself.
COVID-19 has killed more than 345,000 people in Brazil, second only to the United States. This week, one in four deaths from the pandemic occurred in Brazil, where a brutal wave is overwhelming hospitals and setting records of more than 4,000 deaths a year. day.
“What we are facing here is a raging inferno of an epidemic,” Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the director-general of the World Health Organization, said at a public news conference.
However, Bolsonaro’s fatigue and political tension have led some governors to ease restrictions despite the record number of deaths.
The state of Sao Paulo, whose governor has criticized the president, has announced it will ease some restrictions next week, even as its hospitals struggle to control the number of cases.
Sao Paulo officials said the drop in hospitalizations justified the resolve to resume soccer matches without spectators, reopen outlets that promote structural fabrics and resume takeout in restaurants.
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