RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – General Eduardo Pazuello, Brazil’s Minister of Health between May 2020 and last March, exempted President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday from any responsibility in the fight against covid-19, which has already killed 440,000 people in the country.
Pazuello appeared before a Senate committee investigating whether the uncontrol of the pandemic was a consequence of the government’s management and fell into several contradictions. Still, above all, he defended the president, to the point of saying that while he was minister, all decisions were exclusively his.
Without admitting that there were errors or omissions in the fight against the health crisis, Pazuello assumed full responsibility for the actions of the Ministry of Health and guaranteed that he “never” received any instruction from Bolsonaro on that matter.
“I had 100 percent autonomy” and the president “never gave me any order,” said Pazuello, who said that some controversial measures, such as delaying Brazil’s entry into the Covax Facility initiative, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) to facilitate access to vaccines, was exclusively his own.
“I did not feel that there were delivery guarantees,” declared Pazuello, who also confirmed that he had doubts in relation to the Pfizer vaccine, considered the most effective, because it demanded “leonine” contractual conditions finally accepted by the Government, which last March contracted 100 million doses from that pharmaceutical company.
He also denied that Bolsonaro, in October 2020, ordered the cancellation of a contract announced by the Ministry of Health for the purchase of the Chinese vaccine Coronavac, promoted in Brazil by the governor of São Paulo, João Doria, a political adversary of the president.
“There was still no contract, so it could not be canceled,” said Pazuello, who at the time, about that decision announced by Bolsonaro publicly and on his social networks, had stated that “simply one command and another obeys.”
However, now he assured that, as a minister, he “did not follow” what the president published on his active social networks. Bolsonaro, in his opinion, operates as a “political agent” and not as head of state. “I did not, do not, and would not follow an order emanating from social networks,” he emphasized.
THE MANAUS TRAGEDY AND THE GENERAL’S INACCURACIES
Pazuello was erratic before the senators when he was questioned in relation to the serious situation experienced by the city of Manaus last January, when the lack of hospital oxygen caused about 2,000 deaths by asphyxiation, according to data presented by the commission.
The general guaranteed that the Ministry of Health reestablished the oxygen supply in “three or four days,” when the situation began to normalize some twenty days later, thanks to a donation sent by the Venezuelan government.
He also denied that the use against covid-19 of chloroquine, an antimalarial of dubious efficacy against the virus promoted by Bolsonaro himself, was emphasized in Manaus, even though the Ministry of Health’s own official propaganda did so.
Regarding chloroquine, he insisted that the government only gave doctors the “freedom” to prescribe it in cases of covid-19, even though the ministry’s protocol, altered when he took office, including it in a recommendation for “early treatment” against the virus.
Pazuello was also questioned about the reason for his dismissal, so far not clarified even though Bolsonaro continues to defend his management. “Mission accomplished,” the former minister responded sharply.
That answer provoked a harsh reaction from several senators, Eduardo Braga, born in Manaus and from the center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) party.
“When he took over the ministry, the country had 15,563 deaths from Covid. When he left, there were 298,843, and today there are more than 440,000. Is that mission accomplished?” the senator said with visible indignation.