Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been bitten by a EMU-like bird that tried to feed while under quarantine of coronavirus at the presidential palace, local media reported.
According to the Metropóles site, the rhea bird “pecked” Bolsonaro when he tried to feed him during a walk through the palace grounds in Brasilia on Monday.
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(@pedromuriel)Bolsonaro trying to feed an ema ema bica pic.twitter.com/jMT9gd3MeM
July 14, 2020
Opponents of the far-right populist leader, a former army captain who portrays himself as a village man wearing flip-flops and soccer jerseys, eating hot dogs and visiting bakeries, seized the incident.
“100 percent,” Communist Party congresswoman Jandira Feghali posted on Facebook. “Even animals recognize when someone is pernicious,” journalist Solange Mateus tweeted. “Nature is healing,” biologist Flávio Souza tweeted.
The 65-year-old man has been isolating himself at the palace since he announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 on July 7.
On Monday he announced that he plans to take another test as he “can’t bear” being isolated. The result of the test, which is scheduled for Tuesday, “should be out in a few hours, and I will wait with great anxiety because I cannot bear this routine of staying home. It is horrible, ”Bolsonaro said in a telephone interview with CNN Brazil, from his official residence at the Alvorada Palace.
“Interacting with animals has been one of Bolsonaro’s distractions,” the Estadão newspaper reported, publishing a sequence of photos showing the president wearing a mask while feeding the flock of birds and then abruptly withdrawing his hand. The area is a South American bird that cannot fly and is distantly related to emus and ostriches.
Since the beginning of the crisis, the far-right president has dismissed the seriousness of the epidemic and criticized the containment measures ordered by the governors in the Brazilian states. Brazil has the second largest confirmed number of Covid-19 cases and deaths worldwide.
“This woman represents us,” tweeted Margarida Salomão, a congresswoman from the workers’ party.
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