NEW YORK | Arriving in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, President Jair Bolsonaro was pictured having dinner standing in the street with a pizza on Sunday, a fancy attributed by Brazilian media to his refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine.
• Read also: Fully vaccinated travelers will be able to enter the US in November
• Read also: Health passport compulsory to access the Vatican from October
• Read also: COVID: Extended lockdown of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city
Still not immune to the coronavirus, the head of state did not have the health passport required to enter restaurants and other New York public places, the media explained.
“Luxury dinner in New York,” quipped on Twitter the Minister of the Secretariat of the Presidency, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, in a tweet published Sunday evening and illustrated with a photo of the Head of State enjoying a slice of pizza with several members of its delegation.
“Tonight, it’s Pizza-coca”, added on Instagram the Minister of Tourism, Gilson Machado, also playing the relaxed.
“Bolsonaro likes to play humility (…), but it is not a question of taste, it is the law of New York which forbids him to frequent the local restaurants”, explained the famous columnist Reinaldo Azevedo on the Uol news site.
As tradition dictates, the Brazilian president is due to deliver the first speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, but his participation was questioned for a while.
New York City Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi had pointed out that the General Assembly amphitheater was “a convention center” subject to the same sanitary rules as most closed spaces.
But after several days of hesitation, the president of the General Assembly Abdulla Shahid wrote on Thursday to the delegates of the member states to specify to them that it was enough to declare on the honor not to be carrying the virus (thanks to a vaccination, a negative test or no symptoms).
Heavily criticized for his management of the health crisis, Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly affirmed that he would be “the last Brazilian” to be administered an anti-Covid vaccine, of which 222 million doses have already been injected to date in his country.
Arrived in New York on Sunday evening, he had, according to Brazilian media, to use the back door to enter his hotel in order to avoid demonstrators waiting for him in front of the main entrance shouting “Get out Bolsonaro!”
Last Thursday, during his traditional speech on social networks, the Brazilian president promised to make “a quiet speech, fairly objective, focused on the points that interest us”, in particular on the management of the epidemic in Brazil, the agribusiness and energy.
To see also …
–
