Bolsonaro orders more non-transparent publication of corona numbers in Brazil
The Brazilian government no longer reveals the total number of corona cases in the particularly hard-hit country. Since the weekend, the website of the Ministry of Health for Corona Statistics has only published the numbers of infected and fatalities newly registered in the previous 24 hours every day. The page was temporarily not available for the changeover.
Right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter of an adjustment. The South American prosecutor’s office launched an investigation and urged General Eduardo Pazuello, the interim health minister, to explain the move within 72 hours.
Last week the government had started to publish the corona numbers instead of 7 p.m. at 10 p.m. So they only came after the end of the most watched news program in Brazil. “The reporting in the Jornal Nacional is over,” said Bolsonaro.
Health experts, parliamentarians and lawyers sharply criticized the interventions. “The manipulation of statistics is a maneuver by totalitarian regimes,” wrote Gilmar Mendes, a judge at the Supreme Court, on Twitter.
Brazil is particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. According to the American Johns Hopkins University, around 673,000 people were infected and nearly 36,000 died on Sunday evening. During the week, a sad record of corona deaths followed another in Latin America’s largest country, while Brazil reported more virus-related deaths than Italy on Friday. The Ministry of Health now wants the data to be counted again.
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