It was supposed to be a meeting of minds of two clans — directed at a common enemy. The groundwork had been done well. Before flying to Florida on March 6 for a dinner with Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had called back all his diplomatic staff from Venezuela. His government had also told Venezuelan diplomats on its soil to go back to Caracas. A few hours later, the U.S. President was talking excitedly about the meeting at his resort. “Let’s have dinner in Mar-a-Lago. He wanted to have dinner in Florida,” Mr. Trump said.
The dinner was a perfect photo-op for Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro, a self-declared fan of “my friend Trump”, to show their bromance by sitting next to each other, hugging and shaking hands many times. Also present on the table, besides top aides, were Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the third son of Brazilian President, who is widely seen as de facto Foreign Minister of the country. On the menu, besides the lavish spread, was Venezuela as the two leaders discussed the ways to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. The photos coming out of Mar-a-Lago on a barrage of tweets last Saturday projected two leaders standing for “freedom” in this hemisphere. On Wednesday, when Mr. Bolsonaro returned home after becoming the first Brazilian President to visit the U.S. Southern Command, he declared his trip a huge success. Mr. Trump did the same. Both leaders, facing political challenges at home, projected a joint front against a common enemy — Venezuela.
Things went off script within hours of Mr. Bolsonaro landing back in Brasilia as Fábio Wajngarten, the President’s Communications Secretary who was present at the Mar-a-Lago dinner, was suspected of having COVID-19. “Three other members of the delegation to Mr. Trump’s resort have flu-like symptoms,” said an official on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity. On Thursday, as Mr. Wajngarten, who had denied having the virus, tested positive at a Sao Paulo hospital, panic set in Brasilia. Mr. Wajngarten was not only present at the Trump dinner, he had been snapped standing next to the U.S. President.
A period of extreme difficulty
On his return from the U.S., when Mr. Bolsonaro was asked about the growing number of COVID-19 patients in Brazil (so far 98 confirmed cases), he responded by calling it a “fantasy” propagated by the media. This Trump-like response, who had also called the virus a “hoax” two weeks back, set the alarm bells ringing in the medical community.
On Wednesday night, Brazil’s Health Minister Luiz Mandetta was begging with the Congress to release $1 billion to fight the disease. “We can face a period of extreme difficulty as Brazilians are still playing with the virus, treating it like a joke,” the Minister said in exasperation.
The joke turned surreal on Thursday when it was announced that Mr. Bolsonaro himself would be tested for the virus. On Friday noon, the local media reported that the President had “tested positive”. Then Fox News confirmed that the Brazilian leader had indeed tested positive. A few hours later, Mr. Bolsonaro appeared on his social media, claiming he had tested negative and that the media was “spreading fake news”. This sparked an unlikely war of words between Fox and the Bolsonaro clan. “After telling @FoxNews that his father had a preliminary POSITIVE test for coronavirus, Eduardo Bolsonaro now tells @FoxNews the test was NEGATIVE. Bolsonaro says has been in touch with the White House,” tweeted John Roberts, Fox’s White House correspondent.
With the President making light of the whole situation with his tweets, the country’s doctors are in a state of shock. “As per our prediction, more than 45,000 people can be infected with the virus in four months in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. We may need 10,000 beds in ICU. We are losing precious time in mindless jokes,” said a top physician at the Albert Einstein Hospital, Sao Paulo. “We are stressed with such small number of cases. If the number jumps, we are not prepared.”
There are warnings from medical officials that the number of infected people will spike in the coming weeks. On Friday night, a Senator and Brazil’s Charge d’Affairs in Washington, who both had dinner with Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro, tested positive for the virus. Later, it was reported that Brazil’s Health Minister has asked Mr. Bolsonaro to take a third test in the next few days to confirm if he was infected or not. Mr. Bolsonaro — and probably Mr. Trump — would be holding their breath till the result comes back.
(Shobhan Saxena is a jounalist based in Sao Paulo)
