New Health Minister Says Bolsonaro Determined “Broad Debate” With Medical Community | Politics

Marcelo Queiroga is president of the Brazilian Society of Cardiology and assumes the position of minister in the place of Eduardo Pazuello, Army general in charge of the portfolio since May 2020.

The doctor is the fourth Minister of Health in the Bolsonaro government. The predecessors are: Pazuello, Nelson Teich and Luiz Henrique Mandetta. Teich and Mandetta left the government after disagreements with Bolsonaro on ways to deal with the pandemic.

“The president determined that there should be a broad debate with the medical community so that we can further harmonize relations and have a better outcome in the face of the pandemic,” Queiroga said Monday.

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However, since the beginning of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has contradicted the guidelines of experts and public health authorities.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) guides social isolation and the use of masks, for example, the President of the Republic participates in agglomerations, criticizes restrictive measures and also criticizes the mask, contradicting the measures recommended by various medical entities .

According to the most recent survey of the media consortium, Brazil registered 1,275 deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and totaled this Monday (15) 279,602 deaths. With that, the moving average of deaths in Brazil in the last 7 days reached 1,855, a record.

To GloboNews, Queiroga also said that he will meet this Tuesday (16) with Eduardo Pazuello, at the ministry, around 9:30 am.

According to Bolsonaro, the appointment of Marcelo Queiroga will be published in this Tuesday’s edition of the “Official Gazette of the Union” and there will be a transition of “one or two weeks” between the new minister and the predecessor.

For Queiroga, the Unified Health System (SUS) has been a “great tool” to face the pandemic.

He also stated that the goal for 2021 is to guarantee vaccination coverage “as wide as possible.”