Brazilian health authorities registered 4,195 new corona deaths on Tuesday, the highest since the pandemic broke out. This has led to demands from both health professionals and political opponents to introduce stricter infection control measures.
– We can not accept this policy of staying home and shutting everything down. There will be no national shutdown, Bolsonaro said in a speech in the town of Chapecó in the state of Santa Catarina.
The president also defended the use of other treatment methods, including the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. No evidence has been found that the drug is effective against covid-19.
– There are not enough vaccines in the world today. We have to find alternatives, said Bolsonaro.
In an open letter in the newspaper O Globo on Tuesday, an association for Brazilian health workers, which has almost 20,000 members, advocates the introduction of a three-week national shutdown.
– The serious epidemiological situation, which leads to the health service collapsing in several states, requires immediate introduction of strict infection control measures, the letter states.
Intensive care units in most of the country’s states are at least 90 per cent filled up, but the figures have been fairly stable since last week.
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