The motivation behind Bolsonaro’s anti-vax messaging

One of Brazil’s very first Covid-19 patients was military police officer Ari Celso de Barros, part of President Jair Bolsonaro’s personal security detail. He was shadowing the far-right leader on international trips in March 2020 when he fell ill, was taken to the hospital, and nearly lost his life. At the time, Mr. Barros’s mother told the press that Covid-19 was a lot more than the “little flu” the president claimed it was.

Almost two years on, Ari Celso de Barros has been promoted to commander of military police training academies in the Federal District. One of his duties is to oversee compliance with sanitary measures within military schools during the pandemic period. However, many of his peers in fatigues do not seem to believe in the destructive potential of the virus which has already killed more than 620,000 Brazilians.

In the U.S., police officers who refuse to vaccinate against Covid-19 are taken off service and can even face dismissal. Meanwhile, in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina — where President Bolsonaro holidayed last week — around 4 percent of military police officers are unvaccinated, and they have faced no sanctions.

Similar figures are seen in other Brazilian states with wildly different socioeconomic profiles, such as Paraíba and Rio Grande do Sul. There has been no mention of unvaccinated police officers being taken off the streets, or threats of dismissal.

While concerning in itself, the vaccine hesitancy of a portion of Brazil’s security forces is a microcosm of a larger and potentially damaging situation in the country. A survey from news portal Metrópoles showed that almost 15 percent of all Army officials have refused to vaccinate against Covid-19, and 43 percent have yet to take a second dose. One year ago, members of the military were included in the priority group for the government’s vaccination plan, being offered jabs long before the general population.

Slightly over half of Army and Air Force officials are fully vaccinated — a rate much...