"Biological Fukushima": Bolsonaro Resists Calls for Nationwide Lockdown as Brazil Sees World's Worst COVID Surge

By Erin Cunningham, The Washington Post

08 April 21

razilian President Jair Bolsonaro resisted calls for a nationwide lockdown to halt the out-of-control spread of coronavirus cases, even as the nation reached several grim milestones, including a record number of deaths.

“We’re not going to accept these policies of ‘stay home, close everything, lock down,’ ” he said on a visit to the southern city of Chapeco, Agence France-Presse reported.

“There’s not going to be a national lockdown,” said Bolsonaro, who fell ill with covid-19 last year. “Our army isn’t going into the streets to force the Brazilian people into their homes.”

The country’s public health institute, Fiocruz, had recommended stricter regulations to prevent the collapse of the health-care system. On Tuesday, Brazilian authorities said that nearly 4,200 people died due to covid-19 in a single day — the highest daily death toll there since the pandemic began.

The recent outbreak has been fueled by the more virulent P.1. variant first identified in the Amazonian city of Manaus. It has since spread across Brazil, driving waves of more severe illness, hospitalization and death, including among younger patients.

Now scientists there say that they have identified Brazil’s first case involving a similar, more transmissible variant discovered in South Africa. That discovery could portend an even worse phase of the pandemic.

Local officials in Brazil’s most-populous city, Sao Paulo, said Wednesday that they are adding 600 new graves to municipal cemeteries each day to grapple with the rising number of dead.