Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after a series of disagreements over government efforts to contain the new coronavirus. “I just heard from the President Jair Bolsonaro the news of my dismissal from the health ministry,” Luiz Henrique Mandetta posted on his verified Twitter profile, adding that he wished success to his replacement, who is yet to be named officially.
Mandetta, a doctor, garnered popular support for his pandemic response that included promotion of broad isolation measures enacted by state governors. Bolsonaro, for his part, repeatedly characterized the virus as a “little flu,” said shutting down the economy would cause more damage than confining only high-risk Brazilians, and touted the yet-unproven efficacy of an anti-malarial drug.
Mandetta has drawn comparisons to Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Donald Trump’s top virus expert. Fauci and Mandetta have often made public statements about the virus that differed with those of their bosses. Afterward, Bolsonaro and Trump’s bases each took to Twitter to call for removal of their country’s top health official. The White House has said this week that Fauci’s job is secure.
Republicans close to the White House say Trump has complained about Fauci’s positive media attention and sought to leave him out of task force briefings. Bolsonaro, likewise, had convened doctors without inviting Mandetta and, in a televised interview earlier this month, said Mandetta had failed to show “humility.” A few days later, on April 5, Bolsonaro told a group of supporters that he would act against officials in his government who “are full of themselves.”
Those comments were widely understood as signaling an end to Mandetta’s tenure, so much so that the minister said the next day his subordinates had cleaned out his desk.
He survived, but questions have since swirled over whether Bolsonaro had indeed backed away from dismissing the man whose COVID-19 response was welcomed by many Brazilians, or if he were just biding his time while recruiting a replacement.
On Wednesday, with Mandetta’s dismissal looking near certain, his health surveillance secretary Wanderson de Oliveira tendered his resignation. An epidemiologist who worked at the health ministry for more than a decade, de Oliveira presided over many of the press conferences when Mandetta was unable, and was also a booster of quarantine measures to prevent the virus’ spread.
To many people’s surprise, de Oliveira appeared alongside Mandetta at their conference on the same day, saying he had refused his secretary’s resignation.
“We are going to work together until the moment we leave together,” Mandetta said.
While rising quickly, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil is still relatively low in relation to the country’s massive population of 211 million. There have been almost 2,000 deaths.
 west of New York City, discovered the bodies following an anonymous tip-off, according to The New York Times. The discovery came on Monday at the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Unit -- one of the largest care homes in New Jersey, a state badly hit by coronavirus. The cause of death of the 17 has not been confirmed but 68 people have recently died at the facility, and 26 of those tested positive for COVID-19, the Times reported. Police did not confirm the number of bodies found. But in a statement posted on the Andover police Facebook page, one of the home's owners, Chaim Scheinbaum, said the morgue, which normally houses four bodies, "never had more than 15 present" on Monday. "The staff was clearly overwhelmed and probably short-staffed," Andover Police Chief Eric Danielson told CNN. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he was "outraged" that bodies had been allowed to pile up and ordered an investigation. COVID-19 has killed more than 32,000 people across the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, with New Jersey the worst-hit state after New York. The outbreak has reportedly claimed thousands of lives in retirement homes, spotlighting how vulnerable the elderly are to the illness.){kind=link}
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