"Bolsonaro is a virus" – Leader of the Opposition calls for removal of president while Brazil reports 15,000 record cases in one day

It has become blindly evident that the coronavirus epidemic in Brazil has been out of control, providing an example of the consequences of minimal containment efforts and causing concern in Latin America, as Brazil's neighbors are preparing to close the borders to ensure that Brazilians are not carriers of the virus. across the border.

As the situation escalates, President Jair Bolsonaro spends more time inciting his most radical supporters, who are now openly calling for a government takeover and a return to a military dictatorship with Bolsonaro at the helm. Although like Washington Post he was forced to admit that most Brazilians consider the possibility of military intrusion into public life to be remote.

Just hours after the resignation of the Brazilian Minister of Health after less than a month of work, public health officials in the country reported a record 15,305 cases the day before. Before resigning, Health Minister Nelson Teich had criticized Bolsonaro's presidential decree calling for the reopening of beauty salons and gymnasiums. While Teich has given no reason for his resignation, Bolsonaro has dismissed his predecessor for disagreeing with the President's opposition to the closings. Bolsonaro believes that the virus is nothing other than a "little flu" and that it will inevitably spread.

The Brazilian newspaper Globo reported that Teich did not agree with Bolsonaro's insistence on the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat the virus, and sources said the disagreement was the straw that broke the glass.

Military members of Bolsonaro’s cabinet are pressing for the deputy health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, an active-duty army general, to become the new health minister, making his post "acting" permanent, according to Reuters.

Teich's predecessor, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, was sacked in April after urging the Brazilians to observe social distancing and stay indoors.

Over the past week, Brazil has surpassed Germany and France on the global coronavirus depth chart and, in terms of coronavirus load, has arguably become the worst access point in the world , as epidemiologists probably suspect They have diagnosed more than a million cases, as well as tens of thousands of deaths.

The record number of cases brought Brazil's total north of 218,000, and the 824 new deaths recorded on the last day brought the number of deaths in Brazil to 14,817.

On Friday, the governor of the State of São Paulo went wild in Bolsonaro and compared him to a virus: he said that Brazil is currently suffering from two viruses. corona virus and Bolsonaro virus.

"Unfortunately, right now in Brazil, we are fighting two viruses: the coronavirus and the Bolsonaro virus."

João Doria, governor of Sao Paulo, says that the decisions he makes for his city are supported by science and not by politics. pic.twitter.com/mhNzfvQhwD @QuickTake

– Karim RAFFA (@karimraffa) May 15, 2020

As supporters push for military takeover, Congress opposition leader Alessandro Molon warned that Brazil was heading for a public health disaster and began to press for Bolsonaro to be challenged .

"Bolsonaro does not want a technical minister, he wants someone who agrees with his ideological madness, like ending social distancing and using chloroquine," said Molon, a legislator of the Brazilian Socialist Party, in a press release.

Bolsonaro's management of the coronavirus has been widely criticized around the world for minimizing the severity of the disease and telling Brazilians to ignore quarantine restrictions.

The most affected regions of Brazil are in most cases also among the most remote. The Washington Post published an article yesterday on the crisis in Manaus, a city of 2 million people on the Amazon River deep in the jungle. More than 2,000 people died in Manaus last month, more than 4 times the normal rate.

The city quickly runs out of coffins, hundreds die at home, either because they can't get treatment in hospitals, or because they fear they won't, and ambulances run into the streets with no clear destination, waiting for patients to die. so more beds can be opened.

Falling supplies, deteriorating health systems, rampant corruption and mismanagement have prevented developing countries from finding the same response to the crisis as Spain, Italy and the United States . In Guayaquil, Ecuador, the bodies were left on the streets. In Loreto, Peru, the bodies were randomly stacked in a small hospital room, and in Brazil, patients spend their last hours and days on this planet waiting on chairs in the wards hospital emergency.

After years of economic recession, Brazil has neither the money, nor the tools, nor the staff to deal with the problem as it is.

If there is a large country that is really at risk of a complete breakdown of the social fabric, it is probably Brazil at this stage.