'It's my right': Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro will not take COVID vaccine

While the Coronavirus crisis continues to loom large, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on November 26 said that he would 'not take' a COVID vaccine. Brazil has over six million cases of coronavirus and the deadly virus has claimed more than 1,70,000 deaths in the country. Even with surging cases, Bolsonaro has played down the seriousness of the pandemic and has also expressed scepticism over wearing a mask.

In a televised speech on Thursday, Bolsonaro said, “I am telling you, I’m not going to take it (COVID vaccine). It’s my right”. 

The Brazilian President also expressed scepticism over the effectiveness of wearing a mask and added that there was little conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of face coverings in stemming the transmission of the virus. 

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Bolsonaro says stop being a ‘country of fags’ 

The Brazilian President has repeatedly said that people will not be required to be vaccinated when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available. Earlier this month, Bolsonaro also received widespread backlash for a new set of ‘derogatory’ homophobic remarks as he urged people to not deal with COVID-19 pandemic like "a country of fags”. The far-right leader, who had earlier termed the the novel coronavirus infection as a “little flu” before being diagnosed with COVID-19 said that these days everyone keeps talking about the global health crisis.

Acknowledging that he ‘regrets’ the deaths that have been caused by the novel virus, Bolsonaro went on to say that everybody is eventually going to die and thus, Brazil has to stop being the country of “fags”. He urged people to face the health crisis and put up a fight and said, “I hate this faggot stuff.” The controversial statements came after Bolsonaro previously denounced the “hysteria” around the pandemic. 

All anyone talks about these days is the pandemic. We need to stop that,” said Bolsonaro during the speech, which was seemingly on tourism”.

“I regret the deaths. I really do. But we're all going to die someday. There's no use fleeing reality. We have to stop being a country of fags...We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this faggot stuff.”

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