RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian government announced that cultural projects seeking state funding cannot require audiences to have a health passport or to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to prevent discrimination “between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.”
This decision, detailed in a Secretariat of Culture decree, is in line with the Brazilian government’s position taken in early 2021, in which it established that vaccination against the coronavirus will not be mandatory.
The decree highlights that any publicly funded project seeking financing will be prioritized provided that it adopts “safety protocols to prevent Covid-19,” including measures such as temperature checks or requiring negative PCR tests.
Despite this decision, a number of regional governments continue to require citizens to present a health passport to prevent contagion in mass public events, stressing that these powers are part of their constitutional rights.