Unprepared and afraid, Pazuello still tries to avoid testimony

Thousands of largely maskless Bolsonaro supporters took to the streets on May 1 to show their support for the president and opposition for restrictive measures enacted by local governments. At the same time, in an office on the third floor of the presidential palace, a rattled Eduardo Pazuello stuttered and trembled as government advisors subjected him to a mock interrogation. Mr. Pazuello, who served as Health Minister between May 2020 and March 2021, has been summoned to give a deposition to the Senate’s Covid hearings committee. Hardly adept to public speaking, government advisors were doing their best to prepare him for his grilling.

In a word, one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s top aides summed up Mr. Pazuello’s performance in these simulated cross-examinations: “disastrous.”

Mr. Pazuello has a reason to be nervous. Under his auspices, Brazil snubbed the highly effective Pfizer vaccine, foisted unproven Covid-19 treatments on state and municipal health systems, and failed to avoid a massive death toll caused by the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic is already the deadliest event in Brazilian history — barring colonization and slavery, which lasted for centuries.

During Mr. Pazuello’s tenure, the general-turned-cabinet minister summed up his relationship with President Bolsonaro by...