" A doctor doesn't abandon his patient ", Luiz Henrique Mandetta kept saying over and over in recent weeks. However, on Wednesday, April 15, the Brazilian health minister could be forced to leave his post abruptly: if the national press is to be believed, his dismissal by far-right president Jair Bolsonaro would be imminent.
Since the beginning of the health crisis, a real "cold war" has pitted the head of state, "coronasceptic" assumed, against his minister of health, "convinced coronalarmist". In the midst of a pandemic, when 1,557 Brazilians have already died as of April 15 from the aftermath of Covid-19, the announced departure of the Minister of Health plunges the country into uncertainty.
According to the medical community, chaos at the top of the state is already seriously hampering the fight against the coronavirus. "We absolutely need a national link to coordinate local efforts and distribute the equipment! ", warns Gulnar Azevedo e Silva, president of the Brazilian Collective Health Association (Abrasco).
There is an emergency: according to a joint study published by a consortium of universities and research institutes, Brazil could count more than 313,000 cases of people infected with the coronavirus, 12 to 15 times more than the official number released by the authorities. According to a study by Imperial College London, the epidemic could kill 44,000 people in Brazil if 75% of the population is quarantined, and, in the worst-case scenario, more than 1.1 million if no measures are taken. containment is not taken.
"Competent"
With his jet black hair and his eternal vest flanked by the blue cross of the SUS (the public health system), Luiz Henrique Mandetta has become the face of the fight against the Covid-19 in Brazil. Precise, professional, balanced: he is the anti-Bolsonaro, defending the "Maximum social distancing" and the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), when the head of state compares the coronavirus to a "Little flu", crowds and, since April 12, even claims that the epidemic "Start to go away".
"I only work with science"retorted Mr. Mandetta. In recent weeks, against and against its president, the minister had managed to mobilize state resources to fight the epidemic: purchase of 15,000 respirators, order of 240 million masks from China, distribution of 1 million tests, construction of field hospitals in the interior and the Amazon, research credits… Mandetta was on all fronts.
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