SAO PAULO (AP) – A few kilometers from Brazil’s presidential palace, the bodies of COVID-19 victims were deposited on hospital floors with overflowing walls. Lawmakers sent calls to panic components across the country, where thousands of people were waiting for intensive care beds, and had no effective health minister to address on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a smiling President Jair Bolsonaro gathered with hundreds of supporters to hand out pieces of green and yellow cake in celebration of his 66th birthday. The mood was cheerful even as the country approached a devastating coronavirus milestone.
Brazil was in a political mess, as it surpassed the 300,000 deaths of the virus on Wednesday evening. Both enemies and allies are calling on the president to change course to curb a recent increase in daily deaths, which accounts for nearly a third of the world’s total.
Bolsonaro this month began changing rhetoric about the value of vaccines, but continues to reject restrictions on the activity he paints as a violation of personal liberty and still promotes unproven COVID-19 cures.
“Should I change my narrative? Should it be more malleable? Should I give in? Do you do what the vast majority do? “Bolsonaro said this on Monday during a ceremony at the presidential palace.” If I am convinced to do the opposite, I will do it. But he has not convinced me yet. We must fight the virus, not the president. “
Lawmakers have been looking for ways to succeed over Bolsonaro. As hospital systems collapse and supplies run out, four lower house lawmakers told the Associated Press that their members called them their “accomplices.” Two are members of allied parties and spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“There is a lot of solidarity, but everything has its limits. Everything, “House Speaker Arthur Lira, an ally of Bolsonaro, told Congress Wednesday afternoon.” Congress’s political remedies are known and they are all bitter. Some, deadly. ”
Opposition Senator Alessandro Vieira, who is recovering from COVID-19 at home, said the Senate president will not be able to hold a congressional investigation much longer. Another prominent senator from a centrist party, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely, expects the chamber to open an investigation next month. This could further damage Bolsonaro’s popularity ahead of his 2022 re-election candidacy.
Bolsonaro has made some openings to show that the pandemic is being taken seriously, a year after declaring it for the first time as “little flu”. On Tuesday night, hours after Brazil released a one-day record, he delivered a national speech to blame the variants for the most aggressive spread of the virus and to defend his administration’s actions to establish agreements of more than 500 million doses of vaccine.
“We will make 2021 the year of vaccination,” said Bolsonaro, who until recently questioned the effectiveness of some vaccines while directly rejecting offers from some producers. Most of the vaccines his health ministry has assured will only reach Brazilian arms in the second half of 2021. His speech met with heavy protests in major cities, including the capital Brasilia.
Earlier in the day, he swore in the nation’s fourth pandemic health minister, a week after he was appointed. Marcelo Queiroga got the job once the original candidate, Ludhimila Hajjar, declined the job.
When interviewed for the position, Bolsonaro and one of his lawmakers filled Hajjar with questions not only about the controversial pandemic closures, but also issues of concern to his conservative base, such as abortion, according to two ministers present at meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to speak publicly. Bolsonaro’s avid followers also launched an aggressive defamation campaign against her, made death threats and tried to sneak into her hotel in Brasilia.
The election of Queiroga, a loyalist of Bolsonaro, convinced some lawmakers that the president still does not understand the gravity of the situation.
On Wednesday, Bolsonaro held the first meeting with leaders from all branches of the federal government to coordinate efforts. Once again, he defended anti-malarial drugs that have not been shown to be effective in treating COVID-19 and did not propose any policies to deal with the pandemic.
Nor did it offer any updates on the imminent risks to oxygen supply in several states, the decrease in stocks of sedatives for intubation of COVID-19 patients, nor whether the federal government will resume timely reimbursements to governors to expand the capacity of hospital beds. Among Brazil’s 26 federal states and districts, 18 report at least 90% employment in intensive care units.
The health system in the state of Mato Grosso has already collapsed. Dr. Maria Auxiliadora Rosa, director of the Evangelical Hospital in the small town of Vila Bela, said in a video that went viral on social media that she fears there will be no oxygen for patients over the weekend.
“We need help,” Rosa begged.
One of the few governors who attended Wednesday’s meeting, Renan Filho, of Alagoas, of the centrist party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, was baffled by Bolsonaro’s performance.
“The president is trying to change, he is making an effort, but he still has many doubts and little conviction,” Filho told reporters later. “It simply came to our notice then. He is trying to build a national strategy, but it is not easy for someone who has so much voice with his narrative.
Political scientist Luciano Dias, a CAC consultant based in Brasilia, said Bolsonaro is the weakest since he began his administration in January 2019. A Datafolha poll published on March 17 says 54% of Brazilians disapprove its response to the pandemic, an increase of six percentage points over two months earlier.
“The fall in his popularity led him to review some of his behaviors, such as his interest in vaccines and talk to other authorities,” Dias said. “The president had to bow to reality. The continuation of this crisis increases the risk that he will start losing supporters and see his chances of re-election disappear. “
Opposition lawmaker Alexandre Padilha, a former health minister, highlighted another factor that forced Bolsonaro to adapt: the return of his enemy, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The left-wing leader who ruled between 2003 and 2010 had his political rights restored this month by Brazil’s Supreme Court and is likely to run in next year’s election.
“It will drive the debate in Brazil. Try to understand the problems, offer solutions,” Padilha said.
Da Silva has already presented himself as a counterpoint to Bolsonaro: always wearing masks in public, supporting restrictions on activity to curb the spread of the virus, expressing empathy for the families of the victims and addressing foreign leaders to increase the supply of vaccines.
Wednesday’s meeting also sought to repair fences between Bolsonaro and the Supreme Court, which the president has often accused of undermining his authority during the pandemic while maintaining the jurisdiction of governors and mayors to impose restrictions on activity.
During the court session after the meeting with the president, Judge Luis Roberto Barroso offered a quick review.
“After a year of delay, they decided to create a committee of experts and doctors,” Barroso said. “It was very good. After a year of delay and 300,000 deaths.
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Alvares reported from Brasilia. AP journalist Marcelo Sousa contributed to this report from Rio de Janeiro.