Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was the subject of harsh criticism on Sunday after the presentation of the government’s plan, or lack of plan according to his opponents, to vaccinate the population against Covid-19.
The second most affected country behind the United States, the South American country had published its vaccination plan the day before, which included serious omissions, including the start date of operations or details of the means implemented to achieve the goal of immunizing 70% of the population.
Critics have not failed to rise in the political opposition and in the press, the daily Estadão even speaking of “deadly incompetence”.
“The murderous stupidity of President Bolsonaro in the management of the pandemic exceeds all limits”, for its part estimated the great daily Folha de Sao Paulo.
The far-right president assured that he did not plan to be vaccinated.
The Supreme Court ordered the government to present a plan and to immunize the 14 million Brazilians at greatest risk, including health workers, the elderly, teachers and indigenous populations, i.e. 24% of the population. Brazilian population in four phases.
The plan also plans to go as far as vaccinating an optimal level of 70% of the population, without specifying how to achieve it, an absence of details criticized by the scientific community.
The Supreme Court asked the government to specify the date of the start of vaccination within 48 hours, which the Minister of Health, Elcio Franco refused to do, considering that it would be “to act irresponsibly”.
“The Minister of Health takes the Brazilian people and the Supreme Court for clowns,” microbiologist Natalia Pasternak, who regularly criticizes the management of the pandemic by the authorities, was carried away on Twitter.
According to Ms. Pasternak, the 70 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine envisaged in the plan are still in negotiation and no cooling equipment, necessary to keep the vaccine, has been acquired.
The government is also facing competition from local authorities, like the governor of the state of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, seen as a potential presidential candidate, who has secured 46 million doses of the CoronaVac vaccine, from the Chinese laboratory. Sinovac, with which Jair Bolsonaro does not want to deal.