Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for Covid-19

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced Tuesday he had tested positive for the coronavirus and had only mild symptoms. AFP File Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced on Tuesday that he has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, reported Xinhua news agency.

Bolsonaro came down with symptoms on Monday, including a fever of 38 degrees Celsius, cough, and headache, leading to a test at the Brazilian Armed Forces Hospital.

Bolsonaro canceled planned visits to the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais this week, according to the state news agency Agencia Brasil.

The president is considered to be in the high-risk group for Covid-19 due to his age, 65.

Bolsonaro campaigned for continued economic activity and often appeared in public without a face mask and disregarded social distancing.

The president was tested three times in March, following a trip to Washington in which 20 members of his delegation or people he met with later tested positive for Covid-19.

At first, he declined to make the test results public, saying only that he had tested negative. Eventually, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled the results were in the public interest and had to be published.

Brazil has suffered the second-largest Covid-19 outbreak in the world, just after the United States. The country’s death toll has surpassed 65,000 on Monday, with 1,623,284 confirmed cases.

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