tackle corruption and create much needed new jobs counting is underway in local elections across france the 1st round of local elections was held in march but the 2nd part was the lady due to the coronavirus locked out prime minister and want filipe as claimed victory in the battle to become mayor of the northern city of may after while exit polls suggest the mayor of paris has been reelected the election is seen by many as a test of president the man when across policies. and speaking of elections poland's president has won the most votes in the country's election but not enough to prevent a run off poll incumbent under a dude that took just under 42 percent of the vote and will now face a 2nd poll in 2 weeks time against his main challenger the mayor of warsaw raffles chuckled ski is the top story is the news continues after talk to al-jazeera thanks for watching see you soon but i.

will. be. on february 25th brazil became the 1st country in south america to report a cold 19 in connection. and as the number of cases increased over the subsequent weeks and months it's a president with views to take any strong measures. he fought state leaders who imposed lockdowns and mandated social distancing rules calling their actions economically ruinous. still refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the global pandemic he's called the virus nothing more than a little flu his priority has been to keep the economy going at any cost.

but now brazil has recorded more than 1000000 infections and the world's 2nd highest death toll. and as pushes for people to go back to work 2 of his health ministers have walked away nansen patient taken office on april 17th but resigned just 4 weeks later. had replaced lisa. who had dismissed for supporting quarantines the president called it a consensual divorce but mine did the sacking anger across brazil. with many banging pots and pans from their windows. so how will president also not his handling of this pandemic affect the more than 200000000 brazilians and are his decisions influenced by his friendship with the u.s. president will put those questions to one of the men who's played a central role during this crisis brazil's former health minister. talks to al

jazeera. thank you for being with us you have said that a doctor never abandons his patient so assuming that brazil is the patient how would you describe its condition right now. i have. to take the farm. 90 days of the coronavirus pandemic as far as we were in charge we were put in the system to go larger and larger so that we could. check our people and. guarantee that they would have a room to fight for life and i think that the measures that we did in the beginning till the time that we were there i still the ones there are keeping the system

alive although the patient is. suffering from transparency on its numbers and how the press can make that call for off the numbers and and really inform the people so i think that we are in the middle of the pandemic season we have a country though it's a really a continent and we have some cities there are really went through the problem ones in the middle type and other ones that didn't start here so i think that we will go till september struggling with so from what you're saying it sounds like the number of cases which is already incredibly large is even bigger than what is being reported it says that correct well i think that the number of cases are smaller than they are because we didn't have the chance to have the nerve deaths to check the whole population as as we should have done because the 1st

world countries like united states and europe they really went into the market in the beginning and they bought everything and we didn't have anybody to really make a difference on. putting some testers equally for the different countries so i think we have more cases but the number of their absent this is more profitable than real so i think that we are coming to a 1000000 cases tested p.c.r. team and we have. something our own 45000 that us for our country and decide is this population of 215000000 people when you put this in the never ridge and compare with countries of our size we are the meat turn countries. ours health system really worked well here in sao paulo we opened 7500 intensive care units so the system really respond that. way all our industry became to

produce and all the equipment we need so we are now becoming too of a time that we really can't produce everything we need to face it and then excel is not easy we are struggling very hard to do it to give people a chance for fighting for life. is this because of or despite president jane watson addle i think that despite president bush because he's been he made a choice and it's a false dilemma of faking that the economy should reopen and that we should never have make any kind of his alesha any kind of stay home. policy sell. the population really the people to care as far as they could some really didn't he puts pressure for. soccer to to come by actually puts pressure for

the companies to reopen since the beginning so despite all of the way the way that he thought that we should do it we've been trying to speak very very easy way the press is free this record had to worked for me so health to release the numbers in the right way is a lot of the press made. kind of a range meant that they have every day the numbers that are collected by the states and cities and are sent to the press to try to make. the civil society has really parsippany on it so despite his positions we are we are we are really trying to make our best. well the president accused you 1st of all of spreading panic throughout brazil you said you were very good communicator you spread panic and he also says that you manipulated and exaggerated the figures of the number of and people of the people who were infected by coded 19 or how do you respond to that oh

i really didn't think that it was necessary to respond i think that it's so so small in front of the cases of all the victims that are and the numbers are wrong. i'm not a communicator i mean if you see the images you saw you really you saw the health system falling apart the new york you saw the nurses in england working with plastic bags in their hands because the didn't have the equipment. i mean it's just someone trying to say something to to try to put political blame on somebody else 1st he tried to blame it on china then people said all china spain for the whole business is wrong here you shall not do this all the china and chinese ambassador really complain so he stopped complaining on china then he complained and put the blame on the world health organization they said

well that's the last for health you buy some medicines very well from the will have for it is a show brazil was one of the proponents of its creation years ago so he stopped on his it was too far so then he decided to blame it on me it's going to blame it on me it's no use he doesn't make any more damage than a president it's ok to blame it on me i don't care i did what i thought that my or my my values were supposed to be done how i was taught by my the people that worked with we we only said the truth the numbers were to do it with a form of free society and it was it's it's a shame but. it's history will will tell you mentioned the w.h.o. president also not a wants to remove brazil from the w.h.o. and so i wonder you will work with him so closely how much of his decisions do you

think are influenced by his friend president donald trump of the united states you have mentioned it's very they're very close and they're trying to to follow 12 books on our followers trump any was automatic writing next week that from said there he started saying the same thing here i don't think that he really thinks on doing the media trump thinks i'm doing that because you know. you you cannot be an island there won't to have to discuss the new tools for the war health organization remodel the modernising here but the countries there. if the countries are not sitting on the same table to make this discussion there was there or not said there will not be able to are you so brazil is doesn't have the size of the united states to say that it's going to leave the world health organization and really do it so i

think it was just you know just just a political talk so you don't think that they're going to go through with it you know they were not they were not dropped has an election and the 2nd semester also hasn't to go 22 so as soon as strong passes through his election no matter the result if he loses a lot of states want to do it if he wins the united states won't do it so well so now it's probably going to change his position else. you know i found it was very interesting when you in your ardent farewell letter after you were sacked by president bill sonata you described him as extremely humanist but i was wondering why you used that term to describe him. considering that the president in your own words prioritize gave more priority more importance to the economy than to saving perhaps the lives of his other brazilians well there are so many things that i i had to find ways to say. this or call him

a human is if you read the kind of use we have for his famous book our best team i don't know how it's saving grace but the plague that i play a year will see a time in the book where they say that the human is always believe the human race are superior they're really going to win by the end so it was if you read the play if you understand why i call him a human he says it was not. a good way of being someone in this to the middle of a plague not as a compliment to me not as a compliment now oh well now that you say this you know in brazil many like to say and certainly but president also not a says it often he says that god is brazilian and that the cure is right here and that brings up the whole issue of science versus religion and that's a problem oh that's an issue not just in brazil but all over the world especially

in times of a pandemic how do you convince people and governments that science is more relevant than religion in certain cases while saying the truth of if you say the truth of am you search the truth of when i was there i was speaking to the brazilian people almost every did your 3 or 4 times a week and we put the numbers we put the things that we didn't know was one of the things that we thought that we know that there were true that became not true anymore so really explaining them that science is the only way to do it. we have 3 people or. the health system of the brazilian health system it's called source is one of our dealers to defend it the 2nd pillar was life to say that every life matters no matter if reach europe were black or white and 3rd science

as a way to take decisions and then we brought the people together where he started saying all that clora teen all that kind of face say no god but is it and the brazilians are we go well we have this disease because we are different. if you see the polls here 84 percent of people believe in science and believe in what we were saying and he didn't believe on what he was saying so i think it's just a matter of time and things will go each one of the or the right place and i think the science will provide well maybe so but right now hydroxide chloroquine is on the protocol for all brazilians who go to public hospitals with cultic 19 in a country as large as brazil how concerned how much of a concern is that i think it's a big concern because we don't know 1st we don't know if it works and the 2nd is

that we don't know if it harms people. i think that. less said in there will help forget is a she made a mess with that big bird they did they release the paper and one week later then they took the paper because they didn't take the right measures to publish it so now they're we're going to have to wait but as soon as you go to a paper they're really shows that has no benefit and what i'm worried is if it shows that harms that it brings more problems than solutions if it. people die from stroke or heart of their i think we're going to have many many people suing the government for doing that so i think that science is the one who is going to answer this question in my area and that's just as i say many leaders. decided to face this disease in

a political way and they all started the same way this happened to boris johnson eating with the trump of the united states that they got in mexico to bowl so now the problem is that everybody when faced that problem and read saw people die in their countries they decided to change their position and this is not wrong they started a certain way and they face the truth and they call for science their call for people to preserve life what would be the most the largest value of some countries and most are kept on it and didn't change his position that's why brings the whole war amazed what he's doing exactly it but you know some people one explanation perhaps for about what many of us might see as somewhat irrational decisions is that sort of human tendency to go into denial when faced with fear

and in fact i think you said and i'm quoting you i think you called it the rejection of facts that is magnified by. i hate it and i'm wondering how does hatred fit into the equation in this case where i feel it's because of the social media there it's where they get so proud to say that he's right and it's people that talks only for their kind of people they're really follows the social media and they are really the early. if you say that they should pray they will pray they say the nation has left they were half so who think that that's a political power so the hatred of guns from there i think that they're just the same people those applause is the people that has gone from stones on here well right now president bush sonata is saying that the military of brazil the armed forces would not allow an elected president to be removed from office many people in fact are already saying that the military is in charge of the government

including hundreds of people who are now sitting inside the health ministry and that also includes by the way the acting health minister who is at a retired army officer does that worry you well he's not a retired or he's he's in charge yeah he's he's. he was in charge of the whole amazon area he just left there to run the business of you know of which i think that it's not. it's it's. it's p.d. because we have so many sharp and brilliant people on health to work there. i don't think that the military forces will do anything for him if he really has some kind of gives you that brings it to just some kind of impeachment or so but what i think is that he uses as a political weapon but i think that when things comes to

a point the democratic is just in brazil are very strong and if it something happens we did it with. people on the streets of color. i think that the situations here very well in the democratic system is very strong here there would be no way to to walk a single line out of it in hindsight and in view of this pandemic do you regret having ended a cooperation agreement with cuba that sent back thousands of cuban doctors and nurses to their country. think so there were only by the time that they ended the program to what we've seen they were 88000 physicians brazil has something around 540000 so it was nothing close to what we have and they were really replace a very finance. their program really was

a problem for the physicians from cuba but there came over almost 3000 of them decided to stay here because they didn't have any freedom but they were not allowed to have families and they got married here to have key is there not a lot now to work because they would have to take tests of 2 to be recognized as physicians. there that program really had some very deep deep problems with it then i think it was better to. to stop in the president's position really are taking care of ok now while you're you are writing a book right now and about your time in the health ministry what will your book reveal or tell us that we don't know at this point. requests risen and cited to write it is because the last time that we had a situation like this in brazil was 917 in the spanish flu.

we don't have many things written from that period of time. can you imagine if something like this happens 100 years from now and people would say what were the big the big discussion that they were having how the health system worked by the time what diseases did they take there were so many things that we did that i decided to put on the book and you know when you write a book you you have to write how were you soon rounded by the power of the presidency and how the other ministers helped how the press worked so it will have a lot of curiosity of how things work so i think that the book will have. 2 to 2 good points the 1st well is. to become a document from the start of the numbers home the how of how we saw from the

brazilian perspective the world dealing with the disease and how things worked inside inside the power inside the government here and the way they work at side the government if you had to give it a grade what would you give it. well i'm not a teacher to give grades but. i know that you want to do it is gross and i would say there there was a pretty good part of the government there really you know works hard to help and there was a part that was really allows is i would say 50 percent good 50 well from 0 to 10 how to give a 5 to the go but. some people have the greatest day and some people have agreed 0 so individually you have some people there really rough is that bridge style. well finally you know you have when you left the ministry your popularity was

something like 76 percent even higher than the now ex justice a former justice minister said joe model i'm just wondering since you are a politician as well as a doctor would you perhaps be considering running for president it's so far it's intel who had 2022 they were going to have elections here is there more is a close friend of my we've been chatting we've been talking. who knows what is going to happen to me as to but i'm sure that i'm going to parks special in the next elections as a since a. saint of the things that i always said talking to but i really cannot imagine health things are going to be chilled then i just hope that i have brazil will be in a better shape in the good health so that we can have a democratic elections make a very good discussion about things that we really need to work here not what you

can't stand anymore this one side the extreme left wing black bit and all the problems that they have a government owned the other hand the extreme right and both so not and all the problems that they have people are tired and sick of this kind off to wally so i think that there's a room for the middle for no well there is a shot of people that really want to take care and make a serious job i hope that i can be in this field perhaps even as the president. who knows i am more than 35 years older than born in brazil so there are only the 2 conditions there. you have to be president so i'm 55 i'm going to grandfather of got really no i have a wonderful family have a very nice and i love my my profession as a pediatric or to put it surgeon i really like to to run health systems run have

a hospital systems so i can really help my country in many many ways i have invitations to state an added states when i will fell there to work in how the countries all around the world but i always decided to come back here because i know that here you have so many work to be done and my generation of it is now coming to a time that they would have to say what they think about the country. recently given that the thank you so much for talking to algis yeah i thank you very much for inviting.

the health of humanity is at stake a global pandemic requires a global response. w.h.o. is the guardian of global health delivering lifesaving to lose supplies and training to help the world's most vulnerable people uniting across borders to speed up the development of tests treatments and of that seed keeping you up to date with what's happening on the ground in the womb and in the lab now more than ever the world needs w.h.o. making healthy a world for you. to everyone. frank assessments tourism but income stream is dead in the water what's been the result seen perching go up quite significantly informed opinions there has been

a very aggressive political rhetoric that has become very normal in israeli society in-depth analysis of the day's global headlines it's time for new policy it's a treat i think not all you seem to grady brittany fish the baby all with all continues inside story on al-jazeera. 0 is here to report on the people often ignored but who must be hurt how many other channels can you say will take the time and put extensive thought into reporting from under reported areas of course we cover major global offense but our passion lives and making sure that you're hearing the stories from people in places like palestine the young man the sahara legion and so many others who go to them to make the after we care we stay. a global pandemic mass protests demanding change economic recession and geopolitical tensions not to mention the small matter of

a looming election join me steve clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u.s. politics and society on al-jazeera. hello i'm barbara starr in london these are the top stories on al-jazeera more than 10000000 people are now known to have been infected with corona virus across the world the number was. passed as infections keep rising across the americas almost half a 1000000 people have died 6 months after it was 1st detected in china and a quarter of those infections are in the united states which has become the world's worst hit country with 2 and a half 1000000 cases.