Former Health Minister Mandetta Says Brazil Could Reach 100,000 Deaths in Weeks

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Three months after being fired as Minister of Health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta’s worst fear is coming true. On Tuesday, Brazil recorded almost 68,000 new Covid-19 cases, a record that eclipses the preceding one by over 20 percent and rivals figures seen in the United States, with a population 50 percent larger.

Mandetta, who pressed for the country to be quarantined at the very outset of the pandemic, was fired in mid-April after publicly disagreeing with President Jair Bolsonaro. In an interview on Tuesday, the 55-year-old physician criticized the handling of the crisis in the country and said it is only a matter of weeks before deaths exceed 100,000.

“We are experiencing a scientific commotion because no one else has the credibility to come out and discuss what to do in Brazil,” Mandetta said in an interview from Mato Grosso do Sul, his home state. “The Ministry of Health and the federal government have dropped the issue.”

The country has been lacking a full Minister of Health since May 15th, when Nelson Teich, Mandetta’s replacement, refused to release the use of chloroquine and resigned after only 29 days in office. General Eduardo Pazuello, temporarily in charge of the Ministry, has no experience in the medical field.

The coronavirus has killed 82,771 people in Brazil, home to 2.23 million people infected. Active cases total some 613,000. Although the Ministry of Health has not commented on Tuesday’s hike, there are indications that the record may be partly a consequence of issues in the system that computes cases. The state of São Paulo said on Wednesday it struggled to enter data due to technical instability in the Ministry’s systems.

Questioned by e-mail, the Presidency press office did not comment on this matter.

The President’s determination to use chloroquine became even more evident after he was diagnosed with the virus on July 7th. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said he feels well and has even taken the controversial malaria drug during a Facebook live broadcast. A third test this week showed that the President is still infected.

Since the start of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has been criticizing the quarantines, insisting on reopening activities – and he has his motives. Before the pandemic, the economy was still trying to bounce back from the severe recession.

In 2019, the country posted the fourth consecutive year of unemployment above ten percent. And with so many Brazilians in the casual economy, even the erratic quarantines adopted by some governors and mayors failed to fully contain the spread of coronavirus.

Nonetheless, Mandetta and the global health community say Bolsonaro could have done much more to minimize the impact of the epidemic and save lives.

“When they see the head of the country saying on TV that wearing a mask is silly, people think there really is no problem at all, and you sever the cohesion that society needs to face a pandemic like this,” Mandetta said. “People make use of it almost like a macabre alibi.”

Source: Bloomberg