Coronavirus-denying Congressman Osmar Terra tests positive for Covid-19

Congressman Osmar Terra, one of Brazil’s most-outspoken Covid-19 denialists, has tested positive for the coronavirus. The 70-year-old former Citizenship Minister said on social media that he will begin treatment with antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine and antiparasitic medication ivermectin — which have no proven effect against Covid-19 but are touted by President Jair Bolsonaro as “potential cures.”

Back in April, Mr. Terra foretold the end of the pandemic. In a leaked audio message, he said: “The good news is that the epidemic is already declining. The peak was reached late in March […] The epidemic is not falling, it’s plummeting. The number of new cases is going down at an astonishing pace. Two, three more weeks, and it’s over. […] It’s time to celebrate.”

When Osmar Terra prematurely called for celebrations, the coronavirus had infected 25,000 Brazilians, killing 1,500. Now, cases have reached almost 5.2 million people and 164,300 Brazilians have died.He also referred to quarantine measures deployed against Covid-19 as “fiction,” adding that isolation was only for “the middle class with food in the fridge and money in the bank.”

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