Bolsonaro wishes on May Day that the Brazilians go back to work

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said this May Day that he would like all Brazilians to "go back to work", in a new message to the country's governors and mayors for the social isolation measures decreed to curb the coronavirus.

"I would like everyone to return to work, but it is not me who decides this. It is the governors and mayors," the president said this Friday in a live broadcast through the social networks of federal deputy Beatriz Kicis.

The far-right leader said he was sure that "Brazil" will return to normal "briefly", despite the fact that the pandemic is accelerating and has not yet reached its peak in the country, expected in the coming weeks, according to calculations by the Ministry of Health.

Bolsonaro, who is used to underestimating the severity of the virus and defends the end of quarantines, of which he says they are a "crime", maintains a strong pulse with the country's governors and mayors, who have the competence to impose quarantines on their territories, in accordance with the Constitution.

Social distancing measures apply, to a greater or lesser degree, in the 27 states of the country and are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which on some occasions Bolsonaro has come to delegitimize because its general director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , "not a doctor".

However, the head of state has repeatedly demanded the reopening of shops because, he says, unemployment also "causes deaths" and insists that "the economy cannot stop."

The president washed his hands and blamed governors and mayors this week for the increase in deaths from COVID-19, which in Brazil now number almost 6,000, with more than 85,000 confirmed cases.

"They have to answer. You are not going to carry that account on my back," he told reporters days ago.

According to estimates by the Government of Sao Paulo, the Brazilian state hardest hit by COVID-19, with 2,375 deaths and 28,698 infections, the number of deaths from coronavirus would be ten times higher in the region without isolation measures.

Given the worsening of the crisis, the state of Maranhao, in the northeast of Brazil, will be the first in the country to adopt measures of total confinement of the population ("lockdown") to contain the pandemic from next day 5.