AMERICA/BRAZIL - Half a million lives lost due to Covid: call for national unity in defense of life and democracy

Brasilia (Agenzia Fides) - "If, on the one hand, the death of so many requires respectful silence and the prayers of those who have faith, on the other hand we ask, once again, for national unity in defense of life and democracy in Brazil. Better days will come. May this be the banner of a new time. Lost lives will not be forgotten". This is the request of the organizations that give life to the "Pact for life and for Brazil" (Bishops Conference CNBB, Bar Association, Commission for the Defense of Human Rights Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Brazilian Press Association, Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, see Fides, 4/5/2020), released on the occasion of the commemoration of the 500,000 victims of Covid in Brazil (see Fides, 16/6/2021).
The statement expresses solidarity with the thousands of families affected by the loss of their loved ones, and indignation at the demonstrations against the measures recommended by the health authorities, for the care and promotion of human life. "It is incomprehensible, especially on the part of the President of the Republic, in the exercise of his constitutional functions, the promotion of agglomerations with ideological-political objectives, stimulating social behaviors at epidemiological risk. Such attitudes are an attack on life and democratic values". The text, sent to Fides, identifies the causes that have led to this exorbitant number of sick and dead: the manifestations of the authorities promoting the use of ineffective drugs in the fight against the virus, the widespread discredit around science, the omissions in relation to vaccines, the multiplication of fake news, health disorientation and the lack of national coordination in dealing with the pandemic. The importance of the work carried out by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (ICC) to investigate the public management of the pandemic crisis is also underlined, and "the false opposition between saving lives and saving the economy" is denounced. "The population suffers from the lack of vaccines, the purchase of which has been systematically neglected by official bodies, as it suffers from the lack of jobs and prospects. The concentration of income, one of the largest in the world, continues its course, while hunger takes hold in millions of homes. The necessary emergency aid, which should continue to be R $ 600, serves as a palliative, never as a solution". Some sectors of society and some leaders are not promoting peaceful social coexistence, as is their role, in order to build a more just and fraternal society, the signatories of the document underline. The lack of public policies in the areas of health, education, culture, environment, housing, employment, income generation, support for science and innovation, "reveal a society that feels confused, abandoned and sick". (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 21/6/2021)

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