Brazil govt presents COVID-19 immunisation plan, forecasts social distancing for 1-2 years

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s government has laid out a plan for COVID-19 immunisation before the Supreme Court justice that provides details on the doses that will be made available to the quarter of the population, but did not mention the exact date of the drive. As per reports, the document by the Bolsonaro administration which was made public on December 11, was submitted to judge Ricardo Lewandoswki. The Supreme Court justice reportedly ordered the report after an opposition political party filed a lawsuit that sought insight on Brazilian government’s plan for coronavirus immunisation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The immunisation plans call for the government to provide the vaccination shots for priority groups that amount to about 51 million people which is just little than 25 per cent of Brazil’s 212 million population. In the first of the reportedly four phase vaccination drive, healthcare workers and citizens of 80 years and above will be inoculated.

No date has been mentioned by the Bolsonaro administration for when the shots will start rolling out. Meanwhile, no COVID-19 vaccine candidate has been approved by the nation’s health regulator Anvisa. 

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Plan forecasts social distancing for 1-2 years

Moreover, the Brazilian government’s plan has also forecasted that it might be essential to “maintain social distancing measures for 1 to 2 years” in a bid to avoid the collapse of health services. However, restrictions such as social distancing among others have been repeatedly denounced by Bolsonaro even after he had contracted COVID-19. Instead, the Brazilian President has argued that THE pandemic’s impact on the economy will lead to more harm to the nation than the illness and the deaths due to COVID-19.

However, as per Johns Hopkins University tally, Brazil has recorded more than 6.8 million cases of COVID-19 along with 181,123 deaths. Bolsonaro, himself recovered from the highly-infectious disease earlier this year and said that he will not make immunisation compulsory. The Brazilian President has also been on the receiving end of the backlash from other state governors and even health experts over what according to them is a delay in formulating an immunisation plan. 

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