Shortly after the WHO warned Latin America that lifting lockdowns would be premature, President Bolsonaro threatened to consider quitting the “partisan” entity. It comes as Brazil’s Covid-19 cases surges past 600,000.
“I’m telling you right now, the United States left the [World Health Organization], and we’re studying that [possibility], in the future,” Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told journalists Friday. Either the WHO operates “without ideological bias,” or Brazil leaves too, the hardline president said.
Further unloading on the UN entity this Friday, Bolsonaro claimed it is acting in a “political,” “partisan,” and “ideological” manner.
The outbursts come after WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris described the Covid-19 outbreak in Latin America “deeply concerning.” She cited six criteria for relaxing coronavirus quarantines there, saying “one of them is ideally having your transmission declining.”
Brazil has become the world’s second hardest-hit country, surpassing Russia, the UK, and Spain in terms of total coronavirus cases, trailing behind only the US. It has reported close to 615,000 infections and over 34,000 deaths.
The Brazilian president has taken heat for downplaying the coronavirus pandemic, telling the public that “some people will die, they will die, that’s life.” He also suggested in the past that the death toll in his country could have been artificially overstated for political purposes.
Last month, President Donald Trump announced that the US will sever ties with the WHO, saying that it failed to make “major substantive improvements” and was “totally” owned by Beijing. China accused the US government of trying to shift the blame for “its own incompetence in handling the epidemic.”
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