Bolsonaro asked for secrecy in Covid examination after crowding – 05/17/2023 – Power

An exchange of messages between two advisors to the cabinet of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) shows that the then president took a Covid exam in 2021 after participating in a demonstration with supporters in Brasília and would have determined secrecy about the case.

Around the same time, he attacked authorities and people who advocated and practiced social distancing.

According to these conversations, the president manifested symptoms of Covid on the night of May 15, 2021, a Saturday, the day he participated without a mask in the crowd during the act in the federal capital.

“In the comparative exam, he has 10% of his lungs compromised. But he’s fine…. he slept all night, from 9:00 pm to 5:30 am. Oxygenation 97! Zeitoune thinks it’s COVID… Pr doesn’t want to take the exam”, wrote the morning of the following day (May 16) Mauro Cid, Bolsonaro’s assistant.

The advisor —who had his bank, tax and telematic secrecy broken by order of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court)— was referring to Marcelo Zeitoune, one of the doctors of the Presidency. “Pr” stands for “President of the Republic”.

The message was sent to Célio Faria, then head of the Presidency’s personal office and who in 2022 would become Minister of the Government Secretariat.

After the first information, Cid sent Célio another message, about 20 minutes later, stating that Bolsonaro had decided to take the test, but that he wanted “absolute reservation”.

“The medical report from the HFA was entered into the system…. Pr is going to do the exam to avoid leaks. He asked for absolute reservation. He doesn’t want to disclose that he’s going to do the exam. Only if the report leaks”. HFA is a reference to the Armed Forces Hospital.

Célio Faria replied that Cid was aware of and following the case.

At 2:32 pm on the same day, Cid informed Célio that Bolsonaro’s test had come back negative for Covid.

The next day, on Monday morning (May 17, 2021), the then President of the Republic stopped at the playpen of the Palácio da Alvorada, where supporters held a daily vigil, and returned to attack the measures recommended by international and Brazilian health bodies .

Bolsonaro praised agribusiness, which had organized the act in his honor two days earlier, and called those who respected social isolation “idiots”.

“The agro really didn’t stop. There are some idiots there, the ‘stay at home’. There are some idiots who even today stay at home. If the field had stayed at home, this guy would have died of hunger, this idiot would have died of hunger . Then they complain about everything,” he said.

Three days later, in his weekly live, he stated that he took chloroquine when he felt symptoms, even before taking the exam, in reference to the ineffective medicine for Covid and that became a mantra of his administration during the pandemic.

“I took that stuff to fight malaria and, the next day, I was fine. And I’ll say more: a few days ago, I was feeling bad and, even before looking for the doctor, —look at the example I’m giving— I took then that medicine, which had a symptom. I took it, I was tested, it was not [infectado]. But, just in case, I took it. What’s the problem? Am I going to wait until I feel short of breath to look for a hospital?”, Bolsonaro said in the live.

The dialogues also confirm that a Bolsonaro aide died of Covid in early March 2021, information that only came to light through the website O Antagonista, more than ten days later.

Mauro Cid and Célio Faria talk about death, wake and cremation.

Earlier this month, after more than three years and almost 7 million deaths across the planet, the WHO (World Health Organization) declared that Covid-19, the most devastating pandemic of the 21st century, was no longer a Health Emergency. Public of International Importance.

The Bolsonaro government’s conduct in the fight against the coronavirus included a sequence of errors, such as the absence of an organized policy to control the disease, a series of ministers being changed, a bet on ineffective medicines, data blackouts and delays in the purchase of vaccines, among others. points.

Currently, Brazil is the second country in the accumulated number of deaths from Covid, behind only the United States. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 702,000 deaths. In practice, it is like wiping an entire capital, such as Cuiabá or Aracaju, or even 336 smaller cities off the map.

Mauro Cid’s defense says it will only comment on the matter in the case file. Bolsonaro’s advisory declined to comment. A Sheet was unable to contact Célio Faria.