Maguito Vilela, before being sedated again in the ICU.
This Wednesday, at the age of 71, Maguito Vilela (Brazilian Democratic Movement), mayor of Goiânia, who had been hospitalized for more than 80 days due to complications caused by covid-19, died.
The advice of the politician and the city council confirmed the information.
Vilela was diagnosed with the disease in October 2020, weeks before the first round of the municipal elections that were held on November 15 and which led him to the second round while he was still intubated.
While hospitalized, he beat his adversary, Vanderlan Cardoso (Social Democratic Party), and took over the mayoralty of the capital of the State of Goiás.
Maguito Vilela was admitted to Goiânia on October 22 after undergoing tests that confirmed that he had contracted the coronavirus.
Days later they transferred him to São Paulo.
He had been hospitalized since October 27 in the Intensive Care Unit of the Albert Einstein Hospital.
According to the politician's advice, he had already recovered from covid-19, but contracted a lung infection last week that he could not overcome.
In August 2020, the pandemic brought a personal tragedy to the politician, who lost two sisters to covid-19.
Nelma Vilela passed away at the age of 76, on August 19.
Nine days later, his older sister, Nelita Vilela, 82, also died of the disease.
Vilela, hospitalized, took office as mayor of Goiânia on January 1 virtually, by electronic signature, in the hospital's ICU.
Maguito Vilela, lawyer and professor, held various public positions in the State of Goiás: he was a councilor, deputy, governor and senator.
At the request of his family, who feared for his health, he avoided campaigning in the streets as much as possible.
The politician asked his campaign team to use masks and disinfectant gel, according to several people close to him during the period of the first round.
Instead, in the final stretch of the dispute, he began to go out in caravans of cars and ask for votes on the street.
With the death of Maguito Vilela, the Goiânia Administration is now in charge of the vice mayor, Rogério Cruz (Republican party), who took office as interim mayor on January 1.
"It leaves me a great responsibility to make Goiânia go forward together with a team of excellence," he wrote on his social networks.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 2,135 people have died as a result of covid-19 in Goiânia, a city of 1.5 million inhabitants.
In the municipality, 89,469 cases of infection by the new coronavirus have already been confirmed.
Currently, 77% of the exclusive ICU beds for patients with covid-19 are occupied in the city.
