If now the world is concerned above all with India, which records 3.000 deaths a day and whose variant of the virus has certainly arrived in Europe, the Covid situation in Brazil does not improve either, which is confirmed as the second country in the world, to date , with more deaths related to the coronavirus, as an absolute number and according to official data only, which are inevitably partial. The USA is still in first place with around 580.000 infections, but vaccines are now playing their part in the North American country. In Brazil, on the other hand, the combined effect of the delay in vaccination and the almost total absence (except at the local level) of containment measures has meant that the threshold of 400.000 deaths has been exceeded. Of these over 400.000, more than 100.000 have signed up in the last 36 days alone (data updated to Friday 30 April): therefore more people died from Covid in the first 4 months of 2021 than in all of 2020.
The situation is out of control to the point that President Jair Bolsonaro, who surprisingly enjoys good popularity despite the disastrous management (more than anything else, the non-management ...) of the epidemic, has ended up in the crosshairs of a parliamentary commission of inquiry, which will shed light on the responsibilities – which already seem obvious to the naked eye – of the central government. “We want to know why we didn't buy 70 million doses of Pfizer vaccine – explained the president of the commission Omar Aziz at the opening of the meeting -, why we didn't join the consortia and why we did not buy any other vaccines”. In fact, while Italy is now traveling at the pace of half a million of administrations per day thanks to the change of pace of the Draghi government, since last summer Bolsonaro has rejected the offer to purchase vaccines proposed by pharmaceutical companies 11 times.
First the Pfizer serum, due to the contractual clauses; then the Chinese vaccine for a political issue since it is produced by the Butantan Institute of São Paulo, sponsored by the governor João Doria and rival of the president; and finally that of the Covax Facility, the WHO consortium, did not go well either for an ideological question, since the government has an anti-globalist attitude. A real sabotage, but the commission will also investigate the purchase and distribution by the Ministry of Health of chloroquine and other ineffective drugs, the gatherings caused by Bolsonaro, the sentences against masks and social distancing, the crisis in Manaus, the capital of the Amazon , who was without oxygen for days and on the delays in purchasing sedatives and analgesics for the intubated people.
“Everyone knows that the Brazilian president is a virus denier,” he says on his blog Andrea Torrente, an Italian journalist who has lived in Brazil for over 10 years, where he followed Lula's downward spiral, the judicial scandals, the economic crisis and now the dramatic Bolsonaro era. "However, Parliament now wants to understand whether, beyond the crazy statements, Bolsonaro and his ministers have really done everything possible to contain the epidemic or whether their actions, deliberately or not, have accelerated its spread". However, the hopes of reaching a quick solution to the problem are reduced, for two reasons, which Torrente always explains: the popularity still quite high of the president, and the risk that the commission of inquiry will end up with a hole in the water.
“According to the polls – writes the Italian journalist -, 30% of Brazilians are still with Bolsonaro, but if the consensus were to erode further, Congress could be tempted to be impeached. It is also true, however, that in Brazil the commissions of inquiry often end up with tarallucci and wine, or as they say, "em pizza".” Meanwhile the South American country, despite having 2,7% of the world's population, represents 12,6% of global coronavirus deaths.
