Speaking of São Paulo, Brazil, Lula said the United States has a surplus of vaccines and suggested that the surplus could be donated to countries in need.
“One suggestion I would like to make to President Biden through his program is: it is very important to call a G20 meeting urgently,” Lula told Amanpour. “It is important to call the main leaders of the world and put one thing, one issue, around the table. Vaccine, vaccine and vaccine! ”
He added: “The responsibility to international leaders is huge, so I’m asking President Biden to do this because I can’t … I don’t believe in my government. And so I couldn’t ask Trump, but Biden is a encouragement for democracy in the world. “
“When the time comes to run for election, and if my party and the other allied parties understand that I can be the candidate, and if I am well and my health with the energy and power I have today, I can assure you that I will not deny this invitation, but I don’t want to talk about it. That is not my top priority. My main priority now is to save this country “, said Silva.
On Tuesday, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, classified the current emergency in the country as “the biggest sanitary and hospital collapse in the history of Brazil”.
But in a surprise lawsuit last Monday, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge overturned his convictions and ordered the cases to be prosecuted again in Brasília’s Federal Court. If the decision is upheld – and if Lula is not condemned again before the deadline for submitting the candidacy – he will technically be able to run again and challenge current President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022.
Political shock on the horizon?
Lula, who helped found the left-wing Workers’ Party, largely refused to run for office, saying last Wednesday that “he doesn’t have time to think about the candidacy in 2022”.
“If we had a president who respected the population, he would have created a crisis committee to guide Brazilian society on what to do each week,” added the ex-president.
Bolsonaro defended his way of dealing with the health crisis in the face of Lula’s comments, telling CNN Brazil last week that his government empowered local authorities and argued that the imposition of blocking measures – which he refused to do – it would only “lead the citizen to a situation of poverty.”
Bolsonaro had already said that he expected the Supreme Court of Brazil to restore Lula’s convictions and accused his predecessor of having ambitions in 2022. “Former President Lula is already starting his campaign. Because it has nothing good to show and this is the [Workers Party] As a rule, your campaign is based on criticizing, lying and misinforming, “he said.
Although the elections are still 18 months away, the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil is likely to affect voter sentiment. Bolsonaro’s disapproval rates have reached their highest level so far, at 54%, according to the results of the latest survey by the Datafolha research institute released on Wednesday.
Brazil has the second highest number of Covid-19s in the world, with 11,603,535 cases and 282,127 coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Hospitals are packed with cases across the country. CNN’s latest analysis shows that ICU occupancy rates in 25 of the 26 Brazilian states plus the federal district are equal to or greater than 80%. Of these, 14 states have ICU occupancy rates equal to or greater than 90%, which puts them at imminent risk of collapse.
On Tuesday, the governor of the second most populous state in Brazil, Minas Gerais, said the health care system simply could not support new patients.
“I don’t want Minas Gerais to become a horror movie,” Romeu Zema said at a news conference to announce the implementation of the “purple phase” across the state, the most restrictive of the mining plan to deal with the pandemic.
“Any new infected (person) can mean another death because the state is not able to receive new patients,” said Zema.
Bolsonaro’s crisis management under fire
As the spread of the coronavirus in the country surpasses its launch of vaccination, criticism increases. According to the same survey by the Datafolha institute, which interviewed 2,023 people by phone on March 15 and 16, 54% of Brazilians found Bolsonaro’s performance poor or very bad – against 48% at the end of January.
The research report also said that 43% of Brazilians blame Bolsonaro, while 20% blame their state governors for the current state of the pandemic in Brazil.
Regarding the presidency of Bolsonaro, 44% of respondents think it is bad or terrible, four points more than in the last survey and the highest since he took office in January 2019. Thirty percent of respondents judge the rule of Bolsonaro as good or great and another 26% consider it regular.
On Tuesday, Queiroga, in an interview with CNN Brasil, echoed the president when he said that the blockages only apply in “extreme situations” and would not be imposed by the federal government.
Journalists Rodrigo Pedroso and Marcia Reverdosa contributed to this report from São Paulo, Brazil. CNN’s Caitlin Hu also contributed from New York, Matt Rivers from Rio de Janeiro and Vasco Cotovio from London. Lauren Said-Moorhouse of CNN wrote from London.