Bolsonaro says authorities applying for a vaccine passport are extrapolating

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Thursday (2) that agencies that demand presentation of vaccination certificate against Covid are “extrapolating”.

“I understand that those authorities, others, who are demanding a vaccination passport, based on a law dated February last year, where there was no vaccine yet, are extrapolating,” said the president at an event at the Palácio do Planalto.

Bolsonaro did not name the bodies that are charging for the vaccination. Some mayors and governors make this requirement to allow entry to closed spaces, concerts and other events.

The law mentioned by the president is 13.979/2020, which determines that the government can adopt restrictive measures in response to the pandemic, such as vaccination and control of the entry of travelers.

Bolsonaro’s statements were made during an event about the aid the government will grant to poor families to buy cooking gas.

Since November 12, the government has ignored the request by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) to charge a passport for the vaccine to anyone entering Brazil, as revealed by sheet.

The TCU (Court of Accounts of the Union) also recommended, on Wednesday (1), that the government covers the vaccination of travelers.

At the same event, the president returned to his denial speech and cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. “Let’s not make the vaccine a workhorse for political ends up ahead,” he said.

The discovery of the omicron variant triggered the alert in several countries. The Bolsonaro government decided to bar the entry of travelers from six African countries: South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland (Eswatini), Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Anvisa is still asking to close the border with four other nations (Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia), but the government demands more data before hitting the hammer.

The president once again stated that Brazil would not support a new “lockdown”. “The virus will be forever, we can’t, we won’t stand another lockdown,” he declared.

Despite Bolsonaro’s speech, Brazil did not carry out a lockdown, the radical confinement to combat the transmission of the coronavirus, during the pandemic. In this type of intervention, the population has very reduced mobility for a certain period, as a strategy to contain the spread.

In an interview with sheet Last Friday (26), the president of Anvisa, Antonio Barra Torres, defended the charge for vaccination at the borders. He said that the measure would also prevent anti-vaccination tourism in Brazil, since, to escape barriers imposed in other nations, unvaccinated people may see the country as a favorable destination.