Health authorities everywhere have to worry about how to care for the waves of patients that arrive at hospitals every day. The rising death toll. The lack of equipment for healthcare professionals. And the sheer lack of reliable data that would allow experts and policymakers to fully understand the magnitude of this crisis. In Brazil, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta has an additional worry most — if not all — of his counterparts don’t have: he has to deal with the ego of a president that acts based solely on his own hunches and who has no regard for scientific evidence.
Tensions between Mr. Mandetta and President Jair Bolsonaro have been brewing for weeks, and reached their peak on Monday — when word got out that Mr. Mandetta was about to be fired and that a new Health Minister had been chosen.
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