UNGA: Brazil’s health minister tests positive for Covid-19 in New York

“The minister is doing well,” the statement said. It added that the rest of the delegation tested negative for the virus.

Comunico a todos que hoje testei positivo para #Covid19. Ficarei em quarentena nos #EUA, seguindo todos os protocolos de segurança sanitária. Enquanto isso, o @minsaude seguirá firme nas ações de enfrentamento à pandemia no Brasil. Vamos vencer esse ??! ???????? pic.twitter.com/OIaK8hDPy6

— Marcelo Queiroga (@mqueiroga2) September 22, 2021

Queiroga told CNN Brasil that he had worn a mask the entire time that he was in the UN building.

Bolsonaro, a vaccine skeptic, defied UN rules that asked all those attending the assembly to be vaccinated. He has bragged about not getting vaccinated.

In his speech to world leaders at a meeting where the global coronavirus pandemic was top of the agenda, Bolsonaro said his government did not support the use of a vaccine passport and stood by treatment of the virus with unproven drugs such as the anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro (3d L) eats pizza on a street ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, US on Sept. 19, 2021. (Reuters)

He said Brazil’s vaccination campaign against Covid-19 had been successful and that all adults who wanted a vaccine would be fully inoculated by November.

With unvaccinated diners barred from eating in New York restaurants, Bolsonaro and his entourage ate pizza on a sidewalk on their first night in the city on Sunday.

The health minister was the second member of the Brazilian delegation in New York to have tested positive. A young diplomat who was part of an advance team preparing Bolsonaro’s visit tested positive on the weekend and was isolated.

Covid-19 has killed 591,440 Brazilians in the world’s second-deadliest outbreak after the United States.

As vaccination advances in the country, the rolling 14-day average of Coviddeaths has fallen to 519 a day, compared with almost 3,000 at the peak of the pandemic in April.

On a trip to the United States to meet former U.S. President Donald Trump https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trump-brazil-idUSKBN20Z2T7 at his Mar-a-Lago estate last year, 22 members of Bolsonaro’s delegation caught coronavirus in the worst case of transmission in a government that ignored precautions.

Bolsonaro, who regarded Trump as a political role model, has opposed lockdowns to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and seldom uses a mask.