The end of the state of health emergency in Brazil by Covid-19 will come out of paper by the end of this week. The Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, explained, this Monday (18), what motivated the decision, which is not a consensus between health bodies and experts.
“We all know that today we are no longer experiencing a public health emergency of national importance. Just what we’re going to do is recognize this stage that we’re living in today. Today we have the epidemiological scenario under control, a consistent drop in the number of cases and the number of deaths,” he said.
The measure is not a consensus between health agencies and experts. This Tuesday (19), the national councils of state and municipal health secretaries will release a joint document with criticism of the government’s decision.
The concern is with the lack of a plan for the future management of Covid-19 – apprehension even of those who agree that the epidemiological situation is under control.
“Because the decree itself, we can say: it is time, yes. We have low number of cases, low hospitalization and low number of deaths. However, how are we going to do that? It is usually important to have an adaptation time of 60, 90 days”, commented infectious disease specialist Julio Croda, a researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).
For the vice president of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases, Alexandre Naime, the federal government will withdraw a status that it never considered. Therefore, for the doctor, the measure is an electoral move.
“Actually, it became much more of a rant than an actual change. First, because, unfortunately, for the federal government, the pandemic never constituted a true emergency in terms of actions. We have not seen mass testing actions, testing of all symptomatic individuals, isolation of contacts. We had an excessive delay in purchasing the vaccines,” he commented.
The policy to combat the pandemic is a thorn in the side of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Candidate for re-election, he knows he will be attacked by opponents because of that. The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) of the pandemic and the commotion over the high number of deaths exposed the federal government and increased the rejection of Bolsonaro. Therefore, experts believe that the end of the state of emergency could be used by the president as a “turning page”.
“I think this is also an intention of the president. It is about overcoming this most difficult moment he had, when his mistakes in the pandemic were all exposed, and problems that were not imagined there, such as corruption actions in the health area, including the purchase of vaccine, were also shown. And, of course, it wore out a lot of government,” says political scientist Cláudio Couto, a professor at FGV in São Paulo.
The latest Quaest poll revealed that voters are more concerned about the economy than the pandemic these days. Even so, experts believe that the president’s conduct in managing the health crisis will resurface in the presidential campaign.
“Opponents, especially during the electoral campaign, will make a point of remembering at all times how the president behaved during the pandemic. And of course because of that, it won’t be so easy for him to just turn this page and pretend that nothing happened, that, therefore, the subjects have to be different. The past will take its toll,” added Couto.
Source: CNN Brasil
