President Repeats Fake News About Covid

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) reproduced in his life today (13) a distorted claim that originated in the United States and underestimated the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bolsonaro erroneously said 75% of Americans who died of Covid-19 had four comorbidities and cited the CDC, the US public health agency, as a source. This is a distortion of data CDC . Study which reports that deaths among vaccines were very rare; And that in this universe of humans, those who died contracted comorbidities.

According to the study, only 0.0033% of the 1.2 million vaccinated between December 2020 and October 2021 died from Covid, which is about 4 thousand people. Of these, 78% (or just over 3000) had at least four comorbidities.

Disinformation began to spread in the United States with an edited excerpt from an interview with CDC Director Rochelle Wa.Lensky. The cut-off was made to omit that the study included only vaccinated people, leaving a false impression that the census reflects information about all Covid deaths in the United States.

Here, too, from the US CDC, 75% of those killed by Covid had four comorbidities. These numbers are also compiled in Saúde here. When we have more conditions, we will reveal to you the percentage of the death toll. Obviously, the percentage of people with some comorbidity.”
President Jair Bolsonaro (PL)

Prior to Bolsonaro’s speech, this same distortion had already been circulating in Portuguese language publications, as shown The check published by Agence France-Presse Schamus Yesterday (12), it attracted more than 10 thousand interactions on social media sites. This incorrect claim has already been rejected by the US site PolitiFact.

The real speech of the director of the CDC

The interview with Rochelle Walinsky cited by Bolsonaro was granted on January 7 for Good Morning America, on ABC News. Asked about the opportunity for the community to continue to live with Corona Virus On the effectiveness of vaccines, the director of the CDC replied that data from more than 1.2 million vaccines showed that 0.015% of them developed serious cases of the disease and only 0.0033% of those vaccinated died.

The huge number of deaths [por covid entre pessoas imunizadas], more than 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities.”
Rochelle Walensky, Director of CDC

Throughout the pandemic, Bolsonaro has used disinformation as a resource to downplay the severity of the virus. In June 2021, for example, The president distorted the content of the TCU document (Federal Court of Auditors), noting that there will be an alleged over-reporting of cases and deaths from the virus. At the time, Brazil was close to 500,000 deaths from the disease. Today, in the midst of the Ministry of Health data blackout, This number is 620609, according to country data collected by the Federation of Press Vehicles through which UOL part.

The president also reused misinformation from abroad in a live broadcast in October, when Recycled foreign fake content For lying about coronavirus vaccines and using masks.