Bolsonaro says staying at home in the pandemic is for “weak”

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said that staying at home during the covid-19 pandemic is for “the weak” and congratulated a group of farmers for “not getting into the soft talk” of social isolation.

“You didn’t stop during the pandemic. You didn’t get into the soft talk of staying at home. This is for the weak,” said the head of state to rural producers and supporters at an event in the state of Mato Grosso, in the Brazilian midwest, quoted by the local press.

“I always said that the virus was a reality and we had to face it. Nothing to be cowed by what we cannot escape,” he added.

The president also said that agribusiness provided food security for the country. “Agribusiness, to a large extent, prevented Brazil from entering into an economic collapse, and more than that: it gave us food security, not only to 210 million Brazilians, but also to more than a billion other people living around the world, “said Bolsonaro.

Last week, the head of state, who since the beginning of the pandemic was very skeptical about the severity of the disease and opposed social isolation, declared that Brazil is among the countries that suffered least from the covid-19.

Brazil is the Portuguese-speaking country most affected by the pandemic and one of the hardest hit in the world, with the second highest number of deaths (over 4.4 million cases and 135,793 deaths), after the United States of America.

On his trip to Mato Grosso, one of the states most affected by the fires that plow heavily in the Pantanal, Bolsonaro reported that he faced problems landing his aircraft due to poor visibility.

“Today when the plane went to land, he shot. It was the second time in my life that this happened. Once it happened in Rio de Janeiro, and obviously something abnormal is happening, in which case the visibility was not very good “, explained the president.

The throwing maneuver occurs when the pilot decides to climb again with the plane when the aircraft is already in operation to land, towards the ground.

According to the airport administration, the problem was due to smoking in the region, which made landing difficult.

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