BRASILIA - President Jair Bolsonaro visited a market area just outside the Brazilian capital on Sunday to press home his case for keeping Latin America's largest economy ticking instead of locking down activities to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
"We have to work. There are deaths, but that is up to God, we cannot stop," the man said, according to a video posted on the president's Facebook and Twitter accounts."If we do not die of the illness, we will die of hunger." Despite confirmed cases of Covid-19 almost tripling in seven days to 4,256 by Saturday, Mr Bolsonaro has continued to deny the gravity of the disease, calling it"a small cold" that would kill only old people.On Friday, Mr Bolsonaro cast doubt on the state of Sao Paulo's official death toll from the outbreak, the highest in the country, accusing the governor of manipulating the numbers for political ends.
The judge ruled Brazilians could not be encouraged to leave the isolation of their homes and return to the streets without there being a national plan to fight the pandemic.