Jair Bolsonaro distrusts covered vaccines and Brazil is lagging behind

Photographer: Dado Galdieri / Bloomberg

Around the world, presidents and prime ministers are fighting to get precious vials of Covid vaccine to protect citizens and gain political support. Not Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

The president, who since the beginning minimized the pandemic, refuses to get vaccinated, disdains any need to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies and says the country will wait for prices to drop before buying syringes or needles. On Thursday, he said that Brazilians don’t even want to vaccines – information you obtained from surveys on the streets and on the beach.

“It doesn’t make sense, they are experimental vaccines without scientific evidence. You can’t impose that on people, ”said Bolsonaro. “We have to be responsible, we cannot go with the crowd saying that we need to hurry.”

His resignation is quickly leaving Brazil behind in the global race for immunization against a virus that killed almost 1.9 million people, 200,000 of them in Brazil. Although neighbors Argentina, Chile and Mexico have started to fire, Brazil does not even have a clear timetable for doing so. Companies have been slow to send orders to the local regulator, which has 10 days to clear the shots before they can be distributed. Negotiations with Pfizer Inc. dragged on for two months.

Vaccination starts in Latin America, where Covid is most affected

Much like U.S. President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro nods to his base in times of crisis. At the height of the pandemic, he plunged into the crowd, embracing his supporters – much to the horror of local authorities trying to impose restrictions. As criticism grew, Bolsonaro stood firm in his position that the economic tax was more important than the disease, calling interested parties “sissies” and insisting that chloroquine – an unproven treatment – was the solution.

Bolsonaro, who managed became infected and recovered, instituted a $ 60 billion cash donation program that reduced poverty and raised his approval rating to a record high.

“Bolsonaro is a denier,” said Deysi Cioccari, a political scientist at the Catholic University of São Paulo, when explaining his approach. “He does not share the same set of basic facts as the others and has a base that is completely mesmerized.”

With almost 8 million cases, Brazil is among the most affected countries in the world. It was expected that he would vaccinate better, given his deep experience through his formerly established public health system, known as SUS. It has 35,000 outposts and reached 90% of the flu vaccines planned in 2020, despite the pandemic.

The country also has two reputable institutions that closed deals to produce vaccines locally – Instituto Butantan and Fiocruz, partners of the Sinovac and AstraZeneca, respectively. And despite what the president said, 73% of the population says they want to get vaccinated.

Both institutions archived orders for emergency use of vaccines with the regulator on Friday.

More than 17.5 million shots fired: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker

The lack of action by the central government made the 27 states of Brazil defend themselves, with limited means of hunting business around the world. Wealthier states can take a leap forward, exacerbating the inequalities revealed by the pandemic.

Lamentations about the lack of action by the federal government led Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello to act. The third man to he has held the post since the crisis – a military general with no medical training – he strongly denied this week’s criticism, saying that Brazil guaranteed 354 million doses of vaccines and that all states would be treated equally. The government, which bet on the AstraZeneca-Oxford shot, agreed to include China’s Sinovac boosted the plans despite Bolsonaro’s public objections to him “because of his origin”.

But Pazuello also spread misinformation. At a news conference on Thursday, he said that the AstraZeneca vaccine requires only one injection, and that the second dose is only to increase the effectiveness from 70% to 100%, which is not correct.

He also said that there were no vaccines available on the open market for a population of 210 million – Admitin effect, that Brazil did not seek them early – and so the country would have to make its own.

The Ministry of Health did not respond to emails requesting comments on vaccination plans or Pazuello’s statement on AstraZeneca. The presidency said it would not comment beyond Bolsonaro’s webcast and the minister’s press conference.