Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Wednesday downplayed the dizzying increase in Covid-19 cases with the arrival of the Omicron variant which, according to experts, could soon again overload hospitals.
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“Omicron didn’t kill anyone. The person who died in Goiás already had very serious problems, especially in the lungs ”, declared the head of state in an interview with the Gazeta Brasil site.
This patient from the state of Goiás (central-west) was the first confirmed death in Brazil from the omicron variant, according to the municipal authorities of Aparecida de Goiânia. According to experts, the variant has already become the majority in Brazil.
“Omicron has already spread around the world, and those who know what they are talking about say it is highly contagious, but with very low lethality,” he added.
“Some even say it would be a vaccine virus. Some learned and serious people, not linked to the pharmaceutical industry, say that Omicron is welcome and that it can be the sign of the end of the pandemic, ”insisted the far-right president.
According to the latest official report from the Ministry of Health, published Tuesday evening, Brazil recorded 70,765 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours, eight times more than two weeks ago (8,430).
The moving average of the last seven days is 43,660 daily contaminations, unheard of since the end of July.
In the state of Rio de Janeiro (south-east), for example, the number of daily cases has increased by 1,500% in two weeks. Despite this, President Bolsonaro remains fiercely opposed to any restrictive measure.
“Our economy would not support further confinement. Brazil would go bankrupt, ”he said during the interview with Gazeta Brasil.
He again defended the controversial thesis of “collective immunity” that would be conferred by mass contamination.
“Collective immunity is a reality. A person immunized with the virus has many more antibodies than a person who is vaccinated. (…) Me, for example, I am not vaccinated and I am doing very well, ”he said.
For Jair Bolsonaro, Covid-19 is a “politicized disease”: “I am perhaps the only head of state in the world who had the courage to give his opinion”.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Brazilian president has continued to criticize the recommendations of experts to fight Covid-19, rejecting in particular confinement, wearing a mask and vaccination.
A Senate commission of inquiry recommended in October his indictment of nine crimes, including “crimes against humanity”, for having “deliberately exposed Brazilians to mass contamination”, when more than 620,000 people died of coronavirus in the country.