P
olitics
Bolsonaro’s Coronavirus Apathy Comes at the Cost of Brazilian Lives
As COVID19- Cases Rise, Brazil Looks to Become a New Global Epicentre by Ali El Shamy The people residing in Manaus, a city situated in the Brazilian Amazon, have been living through a daily horror story. Everyday, mass graves are dug to receive those who have fallen victim to the novel Coronavirus. Moreover, the lack of measures taken by the federal government means that many more individuals will have their lives cut short from the virus. Brazil is currently on the verge of becoming a new COVID-19 epicentre; as of the writing of this piece 172,790 people have become infected with the virus, while 12,033 people have sadly died from the disease. President Jair Bolsonaro, who was elected in 2018 on a populist platform, has refused to take serious measures to counter the virus, he instead insists that the virus is nothing more than a “little flu” and argues that it is no reason to put the country’s economy
to a halt. The current president isn’t a stranger to controversy; throughout his political career Bolsonaro has made a number of problematic comments. For instance, when he was a congressman, who openly expressed nostalgia for the time when a military junta ruled his country, and he once called black Brazilians “lazy” and “not good enough to procreate”. As president, he has been mired in international scrutiny due to his administration’s indifference toward farmers clearing the Amazon rainforest. In spite of this, the president has maintained a fairly good approval rating throughout his time in office, however his relaxed response towards the spread of the virus has lost him some support from the public, and many of his political allies have started to alienate the president. While it is still too early to tell how the pandemic can affect the next presidential election, there is one prediction we can be sure of: many Brazilians will suffer from
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15/05/20
