Brazil’s leading weekly news magazine, the São Paulo-based Veja, landed an exclusive interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci to try to get ammunition to use against President Jair Bolsonaro’s insane pandemic policies, of just letting the disease rip and refusing to push vaccines or even get vaccinated himself. They got what they were looking for.
Veja asked: “Does it get in the way [of stopping the pandemic] when a leader like President Jair Bolsonaro states he’ll be the last one to take the shot?”
Fauci replied: “You can’t measure how harmful the resistance of a head of state is, but this kind of attitude is definitely not at all helpful. Leaders must not only get vaccinated, but they must also go further than that: it falls on them to advertise the benefits of immunization.” He continued, that Brazilians know their own circumstances better than he does, but “I don’t see a way out other than looking at successful experiences across the world. And they indicate that the only truly effective way out so far has been well-conceived lockdowns based on consistent restrictive measures which keep people at home as long as possible. These limitations don’t have to last too long, but long enough to control the peak of the outbreak.”
