City used in Bolsonaro’s vaccination had denialism – 05/03/2023 – Politics

The city hall used, according to the Federal Police, to carry out the fraud on the vaccination card of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was the “capital of denialism” in Rio de Janeiro during the Covid-19 pandemic, having almost been the target of state intervention in health.

The municipality of Duque de Caxias (RJ) was commanded by Washington Reis (MDB), Bolsonaro’s ally and currently state secretary for Transport and Mobility and strong man in the management of Governor Cláudio Castro (PL).

At the beginning of the pandemic, the former mayor said that evangelical churches would remain open because the cure for the new coronavirus would come from there. Months later, he was admitted to a private hospital in the south of Rio de Janeiro due to complications from Covid-19 contamination. In 2021, he was accused of illegally exercising his profession by personally applying vaccines to city residents.

According to the PF investigation, the head of the city’s vaccination center, Cláudia Helena da Costa Rodrigues, was the one who removed from the Ministry of Health’s system information that had been added about the former president, his daughter Laura, Lieutenant- Colonel Mauro Cid and two family members of the former presidential assistant.

She was heard this Wednesday (3) as part of the operation investigating the inclusion of false vaccination data against Covid in the ministry’s system.

The state Public Prosecutor’s Office even opened a procedure in April 2021 to analyze the request for state intervention in the city’s health after Reis failed to comply with successive court decisions that determined respect for the National Immunization Plan during the vaccination campaign against Covid-19.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the city did not meet the priority criteria defined by the Ministry of Health in the vaccination order. Instead of carrying out immunization with older residents and those with a disability, the former mayor inaugurated the campaign for everyone over 60 years of age.

The measure generated queues and agglomerations at vaccination posts and, according to the MP-RJ, generated failures in the application of the second dose, necessary for complete immunization.

Reis was also accused of illegally exercising his profession for applying doses of the vaccine, even without training as a nurse, doctor or nursing technician.

Successive failures led the Rio de Janeiro Justice to block the assets of the former mayor in the context of a public civil action, with the aim of guaranteeing payment of any fine imposed in the process.

Until the start of vaccination, Duque de Caxias, with a population of 930,000, was marked as one of the places with the greatest spread of the coronavirus in the state. It was one of the last to enact the closure of trade and one of the first to end the requirement to wear masks in open and closed places.

In the second round of the last election, Bolsonaro had 58.3% of the valid votes in the municipality – against 56.5% in the state and 49.1% obtained in the country.

The former mayor was not the target of a search and seizure in the operation on vaccine card fraud this Wednesday. However, one of those investigated is his brother, federal deputy Gutemberg Reis (MDB). Another ally of Washington Reis targeted by the operation was the municipal secretary of government, José Carlos de Sousa Brecha.

Reis was even registered as vice-president on Governor Cláudio Castro’s ticket in last year’s elections. His candidacy was vetoed by the Electoral Justice due to the conviction he had suffered in the STF (Federal Supreme Court) for an environmental crime.

Even at the risk of imprisonment due to the conviction, Reis was appointed by Castro as Secretary of Transport and Mobility, the portfolio responsible for billionaire investments, such as the construction of a light subway in the Baixada Fluminense.