Brazil’s government on Friday removed comprehensive numbers on coronavirus cases and deaths from the Health Ministry’s website, claiming without offering evidence that state officials had been reporting inflated figures to secure more federal funding. Carlos Wizard, a businessman recently appointed by President Jair Bolsonaro to a top job in the ministry, told the newspaper O Globo on Friday that the government suspects state officials have been including deaths from other causes in the coronavirus tallies they report to the federal government. “Local officials, driven purely by a desire to get more funding for their cities, labeled everyone as Covid,” Wizard said. “We’re reviewing those deaths.” The accusation outraged public health experts. Several noted that Brazil has a sophisticated health surveillance system and that there is a broad consensus among epidemiologists that a lack of testing worldwide has resulted in a gross undercount of deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. And an analysis by The New York Times found that coronavirus deaths in five Brazilian cities appeared to be vastly underreported. Mr. Bolsonaro has come under withering criticism at home and abroad for his cavalier handling of the pandemic. He has sabotaged quarantine guidelines issued at the state level, calling them ruinous for economic growth. On Friday, he threatened to pull Brazil out of the World Health Organization, which has urged countries with increasing outbreaks to adopt social distancing guidelines. As of Saturday, Brazil had more than 669,000 confirmed cases, second only to the United States, and more than 35,000 deaths. In recent days, Brazil has led the world in the number of new deaths reported each day. The National Council of Health Secretaries, which represents municipal health officials, called Mr. Wizard’s accusation outrageous. “This authoritarian, insensitive, inhumane and unethical attempt to erase people who have died from Covid-19 will fail,” the council said. “We are not mercenaries of death.” As the country’s caseload exploded in recent weeks, Mr. Bolsonaro fired his health minister and replaced him with a doctor who lasted less than a month on the job. Since mid-May, the health ministry has been led by an active duty general with no medical experience, and military officers have stepped into several top jobs as career health officials resigned. Source
