Brazil president greets supporters

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro greeted his supporters outside the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia on Sunday where he has been isolated since testing positive for COVID-19.

Bolsonaro, who was diagnosed on July 7, thanked his followers and said that the only way for Brazil to change president would be through a vote, in reference to the dozens of requests of impeachment presented by the opposition.

Dozens of people carrying the Brazilian flag gathered outside the official residence in Brasilia, where they sang the national anthem and celebrated when Bolsonaro showed a box with medicine that looked to be chloroquine.

Before his diagnosis, Bolsonaro had spent many of his weekends since the beginning of the pandemic mingling in crowds, sometimes without wearing a mask.

He is treating his COVID-19 with the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, although it has not been proven effective against the virus.

Brazil, the world's sixth most-populous nation and home to 210 million people, is one of the outbreak's epicentres.  Almost 79,000 Brazilians have died from COVID-19, and more than 2 million have been infected, according to government statistics.

Both numbers are the world's second-highest totals, behind those of the US.