Brazil’s health minister tests positive for COVID-19

OSBC
September 22, 2021

Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for Covid-19 Tuesday after attending the UN General Assembly in New York that was inaugurated by his president, Jair Bolsonaro, according to an official statement.

“The other members of the delegation have been tested and are negative,” said the official Brazilian government press release.

Queiroga, who had received a Covid-19 vaccine, was the second member of Bolsonaro’s entourage to test positive for the virus since arriving in New York for the UN gathering.

The 55-year-old health minister will remain in the United States for a period of isolation, even though the rest of the delegation has returned to Brazil.

Bolsonaro, who appeared without a mask on several occasions during the trip, has not been not vaccinated and repeated that he would be “the last” Brazilian to receive the vaccine. 

Queiroga was with Bolsonaro, who last year survived a bout of the virus, at several events, including a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday. 

He was “doing well,” the statement said. He wrote on Twitter that while following “all health security protocols,” the ministry “will continue to take firm action to deal with the pandemic in Brazil.

The health minister was the only one in the photo wearing a mask, but he had pulled it down under his chin.