Brazil’s Bolsonaro branded ‘psychopathic leader’ as three die from taking ‘Covid kit’ he promoted

Sao Paulo governor rebukes right-wing populist president as death toll approaches 300,000

Embattled Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been branded a “psychopathic leader” by the governor of Sao Paulo over his disastrous leadership throughout the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen the country suffer 12m cases and almost 300,000 deaths.

Speaking to CNN, Joao Doria said: “We are in one of those tragic moments in history when millions of people pay a high price for having an unprepared and psychopathic leader in charge of a nation.”

He added that, had Mr Bolsonaro “acted with the responsibility that the position gives him”, Brazil could have weathered the crisis with far greater ease.

Instead, the right-wing populist’s administration had made “unbelievable mistakes, the biggest one was having a political dispute with the governors who are trying to protect the population,” Mr Doria said, alluding to the president’s attacks on states, city mayors and regional administrations for implementing lockdowns and social restrictions, which he opposes on economic grounds, despite the country’s Supreme Court upholding their right to implement such measures last year.

That scathing attack followed Sao Paulo newspaper Estadao reporting that three people who had taken a “Covid kit” of drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin endorsed by Mr Bolsonaro had died while five more had ended up requiring liver transplants.

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The former is an anti-malaria treatment that was also heavily promoted and, he claimed, taken by Donald Trump during his presidency despite its efficacy against coronavirus not having been established by regulators, while ivermectin is a Japanese “wonder drug” for killing off internal bacteria that the European Medicines Agency advised against using to treat Covid-19 on Monday following clinical trials.

Like his former American counterpart, to whom the ex-army captain has been regularly likened, Mr Bolsonaro was dismissive of the virus when it first emerged a year ago, declaring in April that, if he caught it, he would “not have to worry as I wouldn’t feel anything, at most it would be like a little flu or a little cold”.

Inevitably, he did test positive in July.

His country has meanwhile become the new global epicentre of the pandemic since the turn of the year, with hospitals in almost every Brazilian state now straining under the pressure of intensive care units with 80 per cent occupancy rates or higher, according to CNN.

“I have a lot of colleagues who, at times, stop to cry,” Dr Alexandre Zavascki, based in Rio Grande do Sul’s capital Porto Alegre, told the AP recently.

“This isn’t medicine we’re used to performing routinely. This is medicine adapted for a war scenario. We see a good part of the population refusing to see what’s happening, resisting the facts. Those people could be next to step inside the hospital and will want beds. But there won’t be one.”

Meanwhile, just 10m people out of Brazil’s 220m population - or 1.57 per cent - had been vaccinated as of last Friday due to the slow rollout of jabs, with Mr Bolsonaro’s government regularly having to rollback its targets for inoculation.

The turmoil has also played out within his own Cabinet.

Mr Bolsonaro appointed his fourth health minister of the pandemic last week when Brazilian Society of Cardiology president Marcelo Queiroga replaced Eduardo Pazuell, an active-duty general who had originally been appointed on the basis of his supposed expertise in logistics.

As Brazilians take to hanging makeshift black flags from their windows to demand the president’s impeachment for his mishandling of the crisis, a former leader who was toppled by the same means, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has also joined in the criticism of his successor.

Speaking at a metalworkers’ union gathering in Sao Bernardo do Campo earlier this month for this first time since his trumped up corruption convictions were annulled, Lula declared: “This country has no government, this country doesn’t take care of the economy, of job creation, wages, healthcare, the environment, education, young people.”

He declined to say whether he would run again against Mr Bolsonaro but insisted he must be ousted for the good of Brazil.