Coronavirus: Brazil’s Bolsonaro eggs on huge crowd of lockdown protesters, blames governors for ‘destroying jobs’
- In a speech to thousands of anti-confinement demonstrators outside the presidential palace in Brasilia, Bolosonaro blamed state governors for the lockdown
- Experts are bracing for the biggest outbreak in South America to get far worse, as the peak of the pandemic is thought to be some weeks away
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has railed against the country’s lockdown in a speech to thousands of anti-confinement demonstrators as the number of confirmed Covid-19 infections passed 100,000, with more than 7,000 deaths.
Bolsonaro blamed state governors for continuing the lockdown in a speech outside his presidential palace in Brasilia.
“The destruction of jobs by some governors is irresponsible and unacceptable. We will pay a high price in the future,” the head of state said in a speech broadcast live on Facebook on Sunday.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly clashed with state governors, insisting that strict containment measures they are imposing are an overreaction, and damaging to the economy.
The country had registered 101,147 confirmed cases of the virus by Sunday, according to figures released by the Brazilian health ministry, with 275 deaths from Covid-19 within the previous 24 hours.
However, experts believe the overall number of cases could be 12 to 15 times higher, due to a large number of undetected cases given the lack of testing availability across the country’s 210 million population.
