Coronavirus

Former Health Minister gets social media support

twitter Former Health Minister gets social media support

Brazilian netizens on Twitter showed a lot of love to Luiz Henrique Mandetta after he was fired as the country’s Health Minister. Data was compiled by think tank Fundação Getulio Vargas. On Thursday evening, roughly 3,000 tweets per minute mentioned the former health minister. Sixty-three percent were positive to Mr. Mandetta, while 31 percent came from President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters.

A similar trend had been seen on April 6, when the first rumors around Mr. Mandetta’s lay-off arose. On the occasion, 60 percent of the users’ messages contained “Fica, Mandetta” (“Stay, Mandetta”).

The analysis showed that pro-Bolsonaro users regained ground on Twitter on the days following Mr. Mandetta’s dismissal. Positive messages about the president rose from 12 to 16 percent of total mentions within 10 days. In late-March, the rate was 11 percent.