BRASÍLIA – Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday after attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York that was inaugurated by his president, Jair Bolsonaro, said an official statement.
“The other members of the delegation have been tested, and are negative,” said the Brazilian government press release.
Queiroga, who has received a Covid-19 vaccine, is the second member of Bolsonaro’s entourage to test positive for the virus since arriving in New York for the UN gathering.
The 55-year-old minister will remain in the United States for a period of isolation. The rest of the delegation has returned to Brazil.
Bolsonaro, who appeared without a mask on several occasions during the trip, has not been vaccinated, and repeated that he will be “the last” Brazilian to get the jab.
Queiroga was with the president, who last year survived a bout of the coronavirus, at several events, including a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday.
He is “doing well”, said the statement.
Queiroga tweeted that while following “all health security protocols”, the ministry “will continue to take firm action to deal with the pandemic in Brazil”.
Bolsonaro caused a stir on social media after a photograph showed him taking few precautions against the contagion while around others in his delegation, as he ate a slice of pizza from a New York street vendor.
Queiroga was the only one in the photo wearing a mask, but he pulled it down under his chin.
Under fire for his controversial handling of the pandemic, which has claimed more than 591,000 lives in Brazil, Bolsonaro opened the UN General Assembly with a speech in which he made several misleading or inaccurate statements, some of which are related to the health crisis, according to AFP’s Factcheck team. – AFP, September 22, 2021
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