In a bizarre remark about COVID-19 vaccines, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech could turn people into “crocodiles” or “ladies with beards.” Earlier, when Brazil launched its mass inoculation, Bolsonaro said he would not be vaccinated. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic around the globe, the Brazilian president has been skeptical of the virus and also called it “a small flu.”
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Brazil’s Bolsonaro attacks COVID-19 vaccine
According to local media reports, Jair Bolsonaro said he will not need the COVID-19 vaccine because he has already tested positive for Coronavirus due to which his body has developed antibodies to the virus. This statement by the country’s president comes when the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was studied in Brazil. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine is already in use in the United States and the United Kingdom.
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While launching the immunization unit in Brazil on Wednesday, Bolsonaro said that although the Coronavirus vaccine is free, it is not mandatory for everyone to be inoculated. On Thursday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the vaccine is mandatory but cannot be “forced” on humans. According to the latest ruling, the country’s government can fine people for not being vaccinated and even ban them from certain public places, but cannot force them to take them.
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Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil has so far recorded more than 7.1 million positive cases, of which nearly 1,85,000 have succumbed to the disease.
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