Brazil’s Bolsonaro pressures; Army prepares note to ‘clarify’ that it did not enforce vaccination

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Due to political pressure from the Jair Bolsonaro government, the Army Command decided to prepare a note to clarify the directive of Commander General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, issued to regulate the return to in-person work in the military, with a “green light” for vaccinated military personnel.

The perception that the general’s directive was a way to demand a “vaccine passport,” which the President opposes, led to demands for explanations by Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s spokesperson with the general staff.

The Minister met with the commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force on Friday, January 7, to discuss the directive. The vaccine issue is considered “sensitive” within the Defense, because it has become the President’s political flag.

Braga Netto has challenged this. Privately, officials say that the Minister clearly showed that he did not want to upset Bolsonaro, at a time when he is trying to make himself viable as a potential candidate for Vice-President.

The guideline directed officers in senior positions to assess the return to the in-person system of those already vaccinated, 15 days after immunization. However, the directive did not contain a full ban on the return of the non-vaccinated.

There was a loophole in the text so that military personnel without full vaccination could return for review of the circumstances, case by case, to the General Department of Personnel (DGP), which has a Health area and a committee related to the prevention of Covid-19. Nevertheless, Braga Netto himself issued a similar ordinance that went into force at the turn of the year.

In regulating the gradual return to work in the Ministry, he ordered that administrative staff should return to work 15 days after being immunized against Covid-19.

In addition, the overall tone of General Paulo Sérgio’s new directive is to flexibilize rather than restrict activities and training in the barracks. It does, however, recommend the adoption of measures to prevent contamination, expressly mentions the “use of masks, social distancing, and hand hygiene,” measures whose effectiveness Bolsonaro questions.

The commander-general’s document reproduces an order to prevent the spread of false news about the novel coronavirus pandemic on the Internet. This part of the regulation is not new either, as it had been in effect since March 2020, issued by the then commanding general, General Edson Leal Pujol.