Brazil on Sunday witnessed protests against the Chinese Covid vaccine in two biggest cities of the nation. A small group of protesters assembled in downtown Sao Paulo and Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janerio to raise their voice against any mandate for the taking of a coronavirus vaccine.
However, the protests were staged to support a rejection campaign encouraged by President Jair Bolsonaro.
In Sao Paulo, protesters called for the removal of state Governor Joa Doria, who has said state residents will need to take a vaccine, likely the one being developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac and the local Butantan Institute.
"Doria will fall!" the protestors chanted. "Out with Doria!"
On the flip side, the CoronaVac, commonly called in Brazil, has been a key target for dubiousness from Bolsonaro and others. The President has said that Brazilians will not be guinea pigs to the Chinese.
Notably, the issue has become a talking point in mayoral and city council campaigns for elections which are going to happen later this month. Also, as most health professionals support vaccination, social media campaigns have raised questions about the possible perils of vaccines.
According to the poll conducted by PoderData, this week the percentage of Brazilians who say they would take a coronavirus vaccine dropped to 63 in October from 85 four months earlier. The percentage rejecting the idea of taking a vaccine rose to 22 from eight in July.
The Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank said an analysis of two million Twitter postings found that 24 percent of profiles identified as pro-Bolsonaro and they accounted for 56 percent of mentions against the vaccine. On the other side, 47 percent of profiles identified as pro-vaccine and represented 32 percent of the postings.
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In October, Doria said vaccination would be mandatory in his state, and Bolsonaro's health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, announced that the country had agreed to purchase CoronaVac doses produced locally.
The president quickly responded that he would not allow the import of vaccines from China. Though the health regulator later gave permission for Butantan to import six million doses, on Thursday the president said on his weekly live program that he would not buy the vaccine and that the governor should "find someone else to buy your vaccine".
On Friday, Vice President Hamilton Mourao told the magazine Veja that "of course" the country will buy the Butantan-Sinovac vaccine. Bolsonaro immediately responded that he is the one with the power and he will not spend on any vaccine that is not approved by the Brazilian health regulator.
Brazil has reported more than 5.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus infections, and about 160,000 people have died from COVID-19. Though the spread of the virus has become sluggish, public health experts warn people not to bring ease in their protection measures against Covid.