Brazil CPI: Former Health Minister says Bolsonaro ignored warnings about severity of Covid-19

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s former Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta, dismissed in April 2020 by President Jair Bolsonaro, affirmed this Tuesday, May 4, that the president “ignored” all the warnings he was given about the seriousness of the coronavirus.

Mandetta testified before a Senate committee investigating whether there was any omission by the government in combating the pandemic that has already killed nearly 410,000 Brazilians and implied that, in his opinion, Bolsonaro’s denialism aggravated the situation.

The former minister, dismissed for contradicting Bolsonaro by insisting on quarantines to contain contagions, even showed a document he sent to the president after the first deaths. He urged adopting measures of social distancing and informing the people about the seriousness of the pandemic duly.

However, he regretted that these and other recommendations were not listened to by the president, who rejects confinements and masks and promotes the use of remedies of dubious efficacy against Covid-19.

“Those recommendations were based on science, but the president ignored them,” declared Mandetta, who added that, as a doctor, he tried more than once to explain to Bolsonaro that every infectious disease “is fought with isolation.”

The former minister insinuated that Bolsonaro preferred to listen to “other advisors”, among whom he cited the president’s children, rather than to the technicians of the Ministry of Health and assured that the government chose to “move towards the wrong path”.

One of the decisions that, according to Mandetta, aggravated the health crisis in Brazil was the use in public hospitals of remedies of dubious efficacy against Covid-19, among which he cited chloroquine, personally promoted by Bolsonaro despite the doubts it raises in the international scientific community.

Mandetta reminded the Senate that, while he was in office, this antimalarial was only recommended for severe cases and for “compassionate use” and exclusively in a “hospital environment”, as it could alleviate the pain of a terminal patient.

However, after his dismissal, chloroquine was included in a set of remedies without proven efficacy and used in the public hospital network for what the Government defined as “early treatment”, applied after the first symptoms.

In this context, he revealed that, shortly before being fired, he participated in a meeting with Bolsonaro, some ministers, and doctors defending chloroquine. It was proposed to modify the package insert of that remedy and add alleged effectiveness against Covid-19. “In the end, it did not prosper, but it was raised,” he declared.

TECHNICAL PROPOSALS IN THE FACE OF “THE OTHER VIEW” OF BOLSONARO

He also stressed that while he was in charge of the Ministry of Health, his team “presented proposals with a technical profile and based on science,” but that he finally understood that “the president had another look and had chosen another path.”

Mandetta also questioned dozens of Bolsonaro’s public statements, in which he downplayed the seriousness of a virus that he went so far as to call “the sniffles”.

“In times of pandemic, it is necessary to have a single warning message”, otherwise “confusion is sown,” and “the precautionary principle is broken, which in Brazil was broken,” he said.

The former minister assured that he even presented Bolsonaro with projections that, in April last year, he already pointed out that Brazil could end 2020 with 180,000 deaths if it did not adopt the necessary containment measures. “Finally, last year there were 195,000 deaths,” he lamented.

Mandetta was the first witness heard by the Senate committee, which will also take testimony from oncologist Nelson Teich, his successor, who resigned after a month in office due to disagreements with Bolsonaro over chloroquine.

This Wednesday, the CPI was scheduled to hear General Eduardo Pazuello, who took over the Ministry of Health after Teich’s resignation. Due to political pressure he resigned a month ago, and because of his erratic management of the crisis, the courts are investigating him. However, Pazuello said he could not testify because he had been exposed to Covid-19 over the weekend and had to remain in isolation.

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