In Bolsonaro’s Brazil, everyone else is to blame for surge in Covid cases

With Brazil emerging as one of the world's most infected countries, President Jair Bolsonaro is deflecting all responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media.

By contrast, he portrays himself as a clear-eyed crusader willing to defend an unpopular idea that shutting down the economy to control Covid-19 will ultimately cause more suffering than allowing the disease to run its course. The refusal of governors to fall into line with his decree allowing gyms to open, he said, verged on authoritarianism.

Asked about Brazil's death toll surpassing China's, he feigned impotence: I don't work miracles. What do you want me to do? Confronted with a travel ban imposed on Brazil by the US because of widespread Covid-19, one of his advisers called it press hysteria.