Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro minimised the threat of the new coronavirus — which has killed nearly 4,000 people in more than 60 countries and tanked global financial markets — saying its destructive power has been “overstated.”
The fall of world markets “basically has to do with the price of oil, which sank 30%, and with the coronavirus issue too,” said the ultra-right wing president to a crowd of about 200 Brazilian supporters in Miami, where he is visiting in an effort to drum up foreign investment.
“In my opinion, that virus’s destructive power is overstated. Maybe it is even potentially being exaggerated for political reasons,” Bolsonaro said.
Bolsonaro is travelling around Florida to boost investor confidence in Latin America’s biggest economy.
While visiting the state, Bolsonaro met with US President Donald Trump at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, north of Miami.
Trump has faced criticism for his own efforts to downplay the coronavirus’s threat by repeatedly contradicting government public health experts.
Trump — flanked by Bolsonaro — said on Saturday he was “not concerned at all” about the virus and that he planned to continue his political rallies as normal even as a flood of other public events were cancelled.
The head of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, earlier said “the threat of a pandemic has become very real” as cases rise around the globe, including in Brazil.
Earlier, in a pre-recorded interview on Brazil’s Record TV, Bolsonaro revealed he is to undergo further abdominal surgery, his fifth since being stabbed on the campaign trail in September 2018.
“There will be another operation. It should be the last,” Bolsonaro said
Bolsonaro was stabbed in the stomach by a suspected radical leftist during a campaign rally in September 2018, before he was elected president. He underwent four operations on his stomach, the most recent last September.
In January, he told journalists he was suffering from a hernia and that he would undergo a health check in February.
“It’s the age. I’m 64, there were four operations in which they opened up the whole abdomen. Twice, they took out everything (his intestines). It was extremely serious.”
Surgeon Regis Ramos told reporters at the time that a lateral hernia caused the president “occasional discomfort.”
The president’s office, however, did not provide a likely date for the latest procedure. The far-right leader had several health issues since assuming office.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro leaves the Forum Of The Americas at the InterContinental Miami in Miami, Florida, yesterday.
