Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has launched an attack on coronavirus vaccines, even suggesting that the one developed by Pfizer-BioNTech could turn people into crocodiles or bearded women.
The far-right leader has been skeptical about the coronavirus since it first emerged late last year and called it “a bit of the flu.” This week he insisted he would not be vaccinated, even as he launched the country’s mass inoculation program.
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“In Pfizer’s contract it’s very clear,‘ We don’t take responsibility for side effects. ’If he becomes a crocodile, that’s his problem,” Bolsonaro said Thursday.
This vaccine has been tested in Brazil for weeks and is already used in the United States and Britain.
“If you become superhuman, if a woman starts shaving or if a man starts talking in an effeminate voice, they will have nothing to do with it,” he said, referring to drug makers.
But the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the vaccine was mandatory, even though people could not be “forced.”
This means that authorities can fine people for not vaccinating them and banning them from certain public spaces, but not forcing them to take it.
Brazil has recorded more than 7.1 million cases and nearly 185,000 deaths from Covid-19 among its population of 212 million.
Bolsonaro said that once a vaccine has been certified by the Brazilian regulatory agency Anvisa, “it will be available to anyone who wants it. But I, I will not get vaccinated.”
“Some people say I’m setting a bad example. But to the idiots, to the idiots who say that, I tell them I’ve already caught the virus, that I have the antibodies, and why get vaccinated?”
There have been a small number of cases of the onset of reinfection, although there is no certainty about whether a person can be reinfected or how long immunity lasts.
Bolsonaro caught the virus in July, but recovered three weeks later.
Brazil is in the midst of a second wave of coronavirus infections.
After the highs from June to August, cases had been falling, but that changed in November.
On Thursday, Brazil surpassed 1,000 daily deaths from covid-19 for the first time since September.
The country’s vaccination program has been widely criticized for being late and chaotic, especially by Bolsonaro’s opposition.