Analysis: Investigation into Ministers tests the power of Brazil’s Covid CPI

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga and former ministers Eduardo Pazuello (Health) and Ernesto Araújo (Foreign Relations), as well as 11 other officials, will be investigated by the so-called Covid CPI (the Senate’s pandemic investigative committee).

This represents a further step by the Committee after two and a half months of hearings on mistakes in the management of the pandemic in Brazil and the responsibility of president Jair Bolsonaro.

Fabio Wajngarten, ex-Secretary of Social Communication of the Presidency; Mayra Pinheiro, Secretary of Labor-Management of the Ministry of Health; Nise Yamaguchi, a chloroquine advocate physician and alleged “parallel cabinet” member; Paolo Zanotto, a chloroquine advocate virologist, also an alleged “parallel cabinet” member, and entrepreneur Carlos Wizard, a Pazuello advisor, are also on the list. Luciano Dias Azevedo, a Navy anesthesiologist pointed out as the author of a bill to change the package insert of chloroquine, a substance with no scientifically proven effect against Covid, will also be investigated.

In a press conference, Randolfe Rodrigues announced that the CPI has removed the confidential classification granted to documents received by the Committee.

The announcement came this Friday, at a time when the CPI’s firepower is starting to be questioned. What fruit can the CPI actually bear for Brazil, while the president continues to question mainstream scientific narratives, suggesting that contracting Covid is more effective than vaccination, or that the use of masks after vaccination is unnecessary?

What legal measures can be drawn from the conclusions of the CPI senators? With the decision to investigate, the Committee may request documents and information from government entities, for example, within a specific period of time, as well as summon new statements from witnesses and officials, and “request the services of any authorities, including the police.”

The Committee brought to light ex-Ministers of Health and specialists who supported the criticism against the president and strengthened the perception that a scheme has been organized in Brazil to bet on herd immunity by contagion. But it also set the stage for denialists who support Bolsonaro’s policy.

On Friday, infectious disease doctors Ricardo Zimerman and Francisco Eduardo Cardoso Alves advocated early treatment of Covid-19 with drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Meanwhile, Senator and CPI rapporteur Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL) marked his opposition with an announcement about those investigated, outside the session.

In his intervention, Dr. Alves called for the debate on the treatment of Covid-19 to remain in the realm of medicine. “Strangely from May 2020 we began to witness the politicization of treatment,” he said, without clarifying that as of that date science attested to the inefficacy of chloroquine for the treatment of Covid-19. His suggestion to avert mismatches was to silence those who relied on scientific guidance.

Read also: Opinion – Brazil’s “Covid CPI” – a “tempest in a teapot”, “terminating in pizza”

“It is urgent and necessary to remove judges and reporters from this country’s emergency rooms,” he said. Meanwhile, Zimerman called into question the efficacy of lockdown. “Often lockdown is the opposite of social distancing,” he said.

Senator Calheiros had left the session claiming that he would not ask the guests any questions. “On Saturday we will probably reach half a million Covid-19 deaths in Brazil and we keep hearing this kind of irresponsibility,” he said. He left and, along with Senators Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP), vice president of the CPI, and Humberto Costa (PT-PE), announced to the press the list of people being investigated.

Also on Friday, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues submitted a request for Google and Facebook representatives to appear before the CPI. The reason for this is that on Thursday, president Jair Bolsonaro said in a live stream on his social networks that he was immune to Covid-19 because he had already contracted the virus, a claim that is not backed up by science.

“I already consider myself immune. I don’t consider myself, no, I am indeed immunized. Anyone who has contracted the virus is vaccinated, even more effectively than with the actual vaccine because you have really contracted the virus. So, anyone who has contracted the virus, there is no discussion, they are immunized,” said the president.

In addition to the two ex-Ministers and the current Health Minister, the CPI announced that it will investigate members of the so-called “parallel cabinet”: Arthur Weintraub, former special advisor to the Presidency, Francieli Fantinato, coordinator of the National Immunization Program, Marcellus Campêlo, ex-secretary of Health of Amazonas; Elcio Franco, former executive secretary of the Ministry of Health; Hélio Angotti Neto, the Ministry of Health’s secretary of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Strategic Inputs in Health.

The question is how long will it take for the CPI to put together a jigsaw puzzle with the information collected and what impact can it have on a Brazil with half a million Covid-19 victims, that still records over 2,000 deaths per day.

The session was condemned from the start, as there had been rumors about the disclosure of those to be criminally investigated since the day before. At the beginning, CPI chairman Omar Aziz (PSD-AM) announced that the requests to be voted on this Friday would only be included in the agenda next Tuesday.

In all, 317 requests are awaiting consideration. Ruling coalition senators even apologized to the invited doctors for the low quorum. “I apologize for this emptying,” said Senator Jorginho Mello (PL-SC) to the doctors. Zimerman and Alves are infectologists. The former is ex-president of the Rio Grande do Sul Association of Professionals in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology.

He said on video that drugs for the “early treatment” of Covid-19, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, are already proven effective. Alves is a specialist in Infectology at the Emílio Ribas Institute and president-director of the National Association of Medical Experts of Social Security (ANMP), pointed out as one of the co-authors of the Ministry of Health’s informative note providing guidance for the “early treatment” of Covid-19.

Source: El Pais