Bolsonaro minimizes omicron and suggests that variant is ‘welcome’

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) minimized, this Wednesday (12), the impacts of the omni in Brazil and suggested that the variant is “welcome”.

“[A] ômicron, which has already spread all over the world, as the people who really understand say: that it has a very large capacity to spread, but very small lethality”, said Bolsonaro, in an interview with the website Gazeta Brasil.

“They even say that it would be a vaccine virus. They should even… According to some studious and serious people – and not linked to pharmaceutical companies – they say that the ômicron is welcome and can indeed signal the end of the pandemic”.

The representative also claimed that the variant “has not killed anyone” and that the death record in Goiás, already confirmed as a result of infection by the omicron, would be from a person who already had “very serious problems”.

The 68-year-old patient was hypertensive and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

In a new offensive to cast doubt on vaccines, Bolsonaro also said that he ordered Minister Marcelo Queiroga (Health) to disclose cases of side effects caused by immunizations.

Despite Bolsonaro’s speech, experts point out that the omni, although apparently less lethal, brings risks of a new overload to health systems. The last few days in Brazil have been marked by high demand for testing and by several records of people infected by the variant – even vaccinated or who had Covid previously.

The hypothesis that the variant represents the decline of the pandemic is one of the scenarios evaluated by epidemiologists, but not the only one. They point out that the virus can still undergo many mutations, and it is not known whether they will make the disease more or less severe.

So far, the expansion of the omicron reigns over the other variants wherever it goes. Because of the new strain, the world has been registering numbers close to 2 million cases per day, a much higher amount than in previous waves of the disease.

Furthermore, one of the explanations for the apparent lower lethality of the omicron is the current high vaccination coverage.

Bolsonaro, despite this, has questioned the effectiveness of immunizations. He guarantees that he will not be vaccinated and opposes, against the recommendations of experts and bodies such as the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics, the expansion of the vaccination campaign for children aged five to 11 years.

In this Wednesday’s interview, the president again criticized childhood immunization, which should start later this month.

The representative said that “almost zero, a very small number” of children would have died from Covid in Brazil. “And that small number still had the fact of a child with comorbidity.”

Corrected by the interviewer, who pointed out that more than 300 children died from the disease, Bolsonaro maintained his opposition to the immunization of this public.

He then said that he had determined Queiroga to disclose the cases of side effects recorded due to vaccination in the country.

“Okay, I’m not going to question it. Let’s assume that the numbers are right. Does it justify vaccination? Yesterday I asked Minister Queiroga, of Health, for the disclosure of people with side effects. How many people are having adverse reactions in Brazil after the vaccine? How many people are also dying from other causes that are credited to Covid?”, he asked.

“Three hundred-odd children [mortas]… I regret each death, even more of a child, we feel much more, but it does not justify vaccination for the adverse side effects that these people have”.

Bolsonaro’s statement is questioned by scientists, who point out that the vaccines have been approved by regulatory bodies in several countries, including Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) and that they are safe and essential for controlling the pandemic.