The Brazilian Church has joined the protests against attempts by President Jair Bolsonaro to minimise the risk of Covid-19.
He has referred to it as “a touch of flu”, and called on all but the elderly to work as normal.
On Friday 27 March the Brazilian bishops’ conference, together with five other national bodies, including the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, issued a statement to “warn the population to stay at home, following the recommendations of science, health professionals and international experiences”.
The statement said that “the information campaign launched by the President of the Republic, calling on the population to go out on to the streets, is a serious threat to all Brazilians. This is the time to face this pandemic with lucidity, responsibility and solidarity.”
“Are we prepared to see army lorries transporting bodies through the streets?”, the minister of health, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, asked Bolsonaro at a cabinet meeting on Saturday 28 March. The Church’s agency for the support of indigenous peoples, CIMI, has also urged missionaries to “avoid visits to villages and cancel meetings that could expose indigenous people and communities to infection”.
As of last weekend around 20 indigenous people were reported to have been infected with Covid-19, 13 in the south and south-east and six in Alto Solimões, near the border with Colombia and Peru. Ecuador has the highest number of cases and deaths per capita in Latin America.
As of Sunday, there were 1,890 confirmed cases and 57 deaths. It is thought that the large community of Ecuadorans in Spain may have hastened the spread of the virus to the country.
In Cuba, there are 139 confirmed cases, and three deaths. All tourism to the island has been suspended. Venezuela has confirmed only 113 cases raising suspicions that the government is concealing the full number.
The Episcopal Conference made a statement on Tuesday, in support of the country's journalists. Reporter Darvinson Rojas has now been detained for a week. The statement, signed by Tulio Ramírez, auxiliary bishop of Caracas, said, “In the midst of the confusion of voices and messages that surround us, we need a humane narrative.”
Loading ...
