The Brazilian Senate has finally decided to investigate President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
Faced with an average of over 3,000 deaths a day from Covid-19 in the last week, no one has been able to deny the evidence that the virus shows no sign of stopping.
According to data from the Ministry of Health and above all according to the opinion of health experts, the pandemic continues to accelerate in the country favored by the denier attitude of President Bolsonaro.
From the beginning, in fact, the controversial Brazilian president has moved in the footsteps of former president Donald Trump. In fact, he continued to deny the gravity of the situation and to oppose social distancing measures. But, unlike what Trump did, who flooded pharmaceuticals with money for researching vaccines, Bolsonaro only decided that the Coronavirus was to be ignored.
The heavy and significant parliamentary decision was not easy. Initially, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, had rejected the request of more than 30% of the senators in favor of opening the investigation. But, in the face of the worsening of the situation, Luis Roberto Barroso, a magistrate of the Federal Supreme Court who opened the investigation on Bolsonaro, intervened.
A decision that has made the president go on a rampage but which represents an important first step in deciding whether or not he is responsible for all the mistakes made in managing the pandemic.
In fact, under his direction it was not only decided to ignore “social distancing” but the governors and mayors under his diktat went against the trend of the recommendations of the scientific community and loosened all security measures, leaving immense space for the spread of Covid. -19.
Despite this situation, the state of Sao Paulo, the richest and most populous in the country (46 million inhabitants), has decided to reopen the schools announcing an unlikely slowdown in cases, despite the fact that ICUs are still busy throughout the state at 87. %.
The pressure from the government is strong but the teachers’ union is putting up a strong resistance, also because the vaccination rate is still slow. Just over 20 million first doses of the vaccine have already been administered, to just over 10% of the population. However, the Ministry of Health has confirmed that 1.5 million people who received the first injection have not yet returned for the second. Strategies are being studied to find these people. “The recommendation is that they go to health centers to complete the vaccination course even if it is late, as otherwise protection against the virus will be compromised,” the ministry said.
But in this total confusion in which the country is struggling, the doses are also scarce and in the face of the abyss the Senate has decided to try to give a name and surname to the person responsible (at least in part) of this dramatic situation that worsens from day to day. day. And the name could be that of President Bolsonaro.