Corona in Brazil: A country is suffering - and Jair Bolsonaro is sabotaging the vaccination campaign

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President Bolsonaro:

"If you turn into a crocodile, that is your only problem"

Photo: 

EVARISTO SA / AFP

On Sunday, when everything suddenly started moving, the spotlight on the improvised stage of the Hospital das Clínicas in São Paulo fell on the nurse Mônica Calazans, who has been shifting shifts in an intensive care unit for years.

Calazans stripped off her smock and sank into a chair.

A younger medic stood next to her and opened the door to a refrigerator.

This contained ampoules of a recently approved corona vaccine.

Calazans, a heavy woman with diabetes, looked solemn through her large glasses.

All of Brazil watched her.

In July, when the local butantane institute was looking for test subjects for a corona vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac, she got in touch immediately.

Back then, she was given a placebo.

Now she is the first officially vaccinated Brazilian woman, and the picture that was taken, with Calazans' winning fist clenched, is more than a symbol.

A little later João Doria, the governor of the state of São Paulo, joined Calazans' side.

For months Doria had fought against the resistance of President Jair Bolsonaro for this moment.

Now he was talking about a day that would go down in history.

What they experienced, Doria said with emotion in her voice, was a triumph over the lies and filthy slogans of a death-flirting president who is sabotaging his country's vaccination campaign in an unprecedented way worldwide.

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