RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro called social isolation “idle talk” and said the “stay at home” campaign is “for the weak”. The statement occurred yesterday, Friday, September 18th, during an event in Sorriso, Mato Grosso, where the President was welcomed by rural producers and agribusiness executives.
“You didn’t stop during the pandemic. You didn’t join that ‘stay at home’ small talk that we will see later in the economy,” he told an audience of ruralists. “That’s for the weak. The virus was a reality, I always said that, and we had to confront it. No cowardice in the face of what we can’t escape from,” he added.
Bolsonaro adopted a critical stance in relation to the required restrictive measures, according to the W.H.O. (World Health Organization), to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic. The President has always argued that the strictness of quarantine was detrimental to the country’s economy and, as a result, has accumulated differences with governors and mayors.
Brazil records a total of 135,203 deaths from the pandemic, according to the result of a survey by a consortium of several media outlets. The country also ranks third in the world in terms of the number of infections (4.4 million). The figures are from Johns Hopkins American University.
Fright
Earlier, in Sinop, also in Mato Grosso, Bolsonaro said that his plane had to abort when trying to land at the local airport.
The procedure takes place when the pilot gives up landing and, close to the ground, takes off suddenly to make a new approach later. According to the governor, this occurred due to low visibility.
Bolsonaro did not ascribe the maneuver to the smoke caused by the fires that spread through the Brazilian Pantanal and that are the subject of criticism from the international community for the government’s environmental management. The fires have now destroyed over 3,000 hectares.
“When our plane was to land today, it had to go around again, for the second time in my life. It’s always something abnormal, in this case visibility was not very good. Fortunately, on the second try we landed”.
However, according to COA (Centro Oeste Airports), the company that manages the João Figueiredo airport, the procedure was necessary because of the smoke that hovers over the region.
On the other hand, the company claimed that there are no fires in the surrounding areas and that the smoke came from a distant area. Sinop is located some 500 kilometers from the Pantanal, according to COA.
In addition to the President, the Minister of the Institutional Security Office Augusto Heleno, of the Government Secretariat Luiz Eduardo Ramos, and of Infrastructure Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas were in the aircraft. No one was hurt.
Source: UOL