Congress falls short in holding Bolsonaro accountable for Covid crisis

Last year, Congress acted as a leading force in combating the pandemic in Brazil. Lawmakers sponsored and enacted important policies to deal with Covid-19, none more crucial than the coronavirus emergency aid program. However, these same legislators have done very little to hold the Bolsonaro administration accountable for its disastrous pandemic response.

Over 265,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Brazil, yet the Jair Bolsonaro government still lacks a coherent vaccination plan and refuses to coordinate an appropriate crisis response with the country’s state governors.

Amid this chaos, the only effort to properly investigate the Executive branch’s role in the pandemic collapse — the so-called Covid Committee — has largely been ignored by both the federal government and lawmakers themselves.

The Covid Committee was set up last year to monitor the implementation of Covid-19 policies in Brazil. In December, it released a final report with 37 policy recommendations to...