Rio de Janeiro, October 28 (EFE) .- Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Friday that the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, will one day have to pay for the thousands of deaths he was responsible for for the its policy of denial against the covid pandemic.
“Many have lost their lives due to the irresponsible behavior of the President of the Republic,” the progressive leader said Sunday in the last debate of the candidates on television before the presidential elections.
The leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) took advantage of the debate to recall the questionable handling of the Bolsonaro government in the face of the pandemic, as well as the insistence of the far-right leader in denying the seriousness of the health crisis and in denying the effectiveness of vaccines. .
“One day you will have to pay for the nearly 300,000 people who died due to the delay in the covid immunization process in Brazil,” he added.
According to the favorite for Sunday’s elections, Brazil, despite having 3% of the world population, has 11% of the victims of covid on the entire planet.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, Brazil has recorded 688,080 deaths from covid until this Friday, making it the second country with the highest number of victims of the virus in the world, and about 34.8 million infections, which they are among the three countries with the highest number of cases of the disease.
Lula said these figures were due to the negligence of a government that initially denied the severity of the disease and then spent 45 days denying the vaccine.
According to the opposition candidate, Deputy Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was Bolsonaro’s Prime Minister of Health, also acknowledged that if Brazil started vaccinating faster, it would have avoided at least 200,000 deaths.
“Bolsonaro does not answer my questions about the pandemic because it must weigh on his conscience. He, inhumane as he is, has not gone to see any patients,” he said.
The head of state argued in his defense that his government bought more than 500 million doses of the vaccine and that it began immunizing the population the same day the regulatory agency cleared it.
He added that the world’s first covid vaccine started being applied in January and a month later Brazil was already using it.
“Brazil was an example of vaccination. If you got the vaccine, you have to thank me,” he told Lula.
Bolsonaro also recalled an alleged statement in which Lula “thanked God and nature for creating this virus called coronavirus” and said the problems added up because his opponent’s government (2003-2010) preferred to invest in the organization. World Cup than in health.
In the heated debate, Lula said Bolsonaro appointed three ministers who didn’t understand health and then handed the job to an army general who could only protest because vaccines were expensive.
Bolsonaro, in response, said that at least his health ministers were not involved in corruption scandals like Lula’s.
The progressive leader won the first round of the presidential elections with 48.4% of the vote, against 43.2% of the far right, and polls indicate him as the favorite in the second round, with 49% of the voting intentions. against 44% of Bolsonaro. EFE
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