Brazil’s rampant coronavirus outbreak has become a global threat that risks spawning new and even more lethal variants, one of the South American country’s top scientists has warned as it suffered its deadliest day of the pandemic. “Brazil is an open-air laboratory for the virus to proliferate and eventually create more lethal mutations,” warned Nicolelis. José Gomes Temporão, Brazil’s health minister during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, said Bolsonaro’s response had been so lacking that he and other senior administration figures would eventually “have to be held accountable”. Just 3.3% of Brazil’s population has so far been vaccinated, compared to 15.2% in the US, 18% in Chile and 29.9% in the UK. “I don’t think there is any other leader who is so obtuse, so backward, who has such a mistaken and warped vision of reality as the president of Brazil,” Temporão said.

Source: The Guardian March 03, 2021 10:16 UTC