COVID-19 Ravages Brazil

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You have said that, in Brazil, more health workers have died than anywhere else in the world under this COVID crisis, that your people are spent, and that this is a result of mistaken political decisions. That’s your quote. What do you mean by that? Well could have made a difference?

LUIZ HENRIQUE MANDETTA, FORMER BRAZILIAN HEALTH MINISTER: Well, Christiane, thanks for having me here, unfortunately, in such a bad moment, such a sad moment for our Brazilian families and for the whole world. Well, the president took the steps, one by one, doing what shouldn’t be done. He first started telling people that it was just a simple flu. Then he kept on holding his chloroquine box and telling people that that would work. Then he went further and changed one minister, was me, then the other minister. Then he put a military in there. And the general that went in office, he just didn’t have the credibility. So, he decided not to give the numbers anymore. The Supreme Court had to do it. And the press started to make the numbers, because they had no credibility to release the numbers anymore. Then the worst part of it is, by August, July and August, all the labs, Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen, they all came to Brazil, because Brazil is such a good place for vaccines. It’s one of the best world-known health systems for delivering the vaccines. So, they all wanted to start from here, because we can vaccinate many people in one day. But he just said that he didn’t want it because he decided to go in a political rally with the governor of Sao Paulo. So, the test, they just didn’t use it. And they all lost their time to be used it, and always complaining and blaming someone for the faults and saying that it was almost over. Now we have the worst time until now. Things are hard and are getting worse. And we are going to have many, many difficult days ahead.