Brazilian city holds breath after electing mayor in intensive care

In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro shocked the world by winning Brazil’s presidential election after spending a large part of the campaign in the hospital, following a stabbing attack almost two months before election day. Two years later, another politician took this feat to the next level: in Goiânia — Brazil’s tenth-largest city — Maguito Vilela was elected mayor while fighting for his life in an intensive care unit, battling a severe case of Covid-19.

Admitted to the hospital late in October, Mr. Vilela had to be intubated hours prior to the first-round election on November 15. When the final results came in on Sunday, showing Mr. Vilela having won 52 percent of the vote, the mayor-elect had no idea that he had even qualified for last weekend’s runoff.

When he was officially elected as the new mayor of Goiânia, Mr. Vilela was “tracheostomized, sedated, and hooked up to a mechanical ventilation system” in a São Paulo hospital. While the latest medical reports say the politician...