The government of Jair Bolsonaro established through a decree to prohibit schools from requiring that their students be vaccinated against covid-19. The decision of the Bolsonarista administration comes after the attacks of the president against child vaccination, recommended by the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa).
“The requirement of proof of immunization as an indirect means to induce mandatory vaccination could only be established by law”says the decree published in the Official Gazette and signed by the Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro.
The text also emphasizes that the mandatory nature of vaccination is not contemplated in the legislation. In this sense, “it is not possible for federal educational institutions to establish the requirement of vaccination against covid-19 as a condition for the return to face-to-face educational activities.”
The next school year begins at the end of January and the classes are expected to be completely face-to-face after the virtual modality was implemented from March 2020. On December 16, Anvisa, the health regulator, approved the pediatric vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and recommended that it be applied to children between 5 and 11 years old.
However, Bolsonaro quickly came out against Anvisa’s recommendation, even assuring that he would not allow his 11-year-old daughter to be immunized. In addition to denying the severity of the coronavirus, the Brazilian president has also been a strong opponent of the use of chinstraps and vaccination, as well as other measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Bolsonaro even put his vaccination history under state secret and assured that he will be the last Brazilian to be inoculated. So far, eighty percent of the country’s citizens over the age of twelve have been immunized, according to official data.
The Bolsonaro administration has not yet defined whether it will accept Anvisa’s recommendation on children, but it opened a “public consultation” so that any interested party, regardless of their scientific knowledge, can comment on the matter, despite the fact that since the Brazilian medical associations expressed concern about the number of deaths from covid-19 in boys and girls between the ages of five and eleven.
On the other hand, Bolsonaro also rejects the requirement of the vaccine against covid-19 to participate in indoor events. “I will never demand the vaccination pass,” he said earlier this month. The government even refused to demand the full vaccination scheme for those entering the country, a measure widely applied around the world, until the justice forced it to do so. According to the Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, the decision will be taken after that consultation and could be to release vaccination for children, but only with the consent of their parents and a “medical prescription.”
The Brazilian government also decreed that federal universities will not be able to require the vaccine against covid-19 to students, teaching workers and non-teaching workers. The directive is issued after several universities approved their own protocols for the return to face-to-face classes in 2022, including in some cases the obligation of full vaccination against covid-19, which involves two doses. In the last 24 hours, the South American giant registered 112 deaths and more than 9,000 infections of covid-19. Total, Brazil registers 618,817 fatalities and 22,263,864 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest balance of the National Council of Health Secretaries (Conass).
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