Bolsonaro, under US pressure, had excluded Chinese companies from 5G contracts worth US$3-5 billion. Ernesto Londoño and Letícia Casado report in the New York Times “Brazil has suddenly changed its stance.” Communications Minister Fabio Faria visited Beijing in February “to ask for vaccines.”
2,000 Brazilians are dying every day. The US has refused to deliver any vaccine to Brazil, even if it pays for it. Brazil is facing its worst health crisis since the Europeans invaded.
Faria also visited Huawei in Shenzhen. It donated 20 oxygen-making machines to the city of Manaus, where Covid patients suffocated to death in February as hospitals ran out of oxygen. A hospital without oxygen is a horrifying thought. My life was recently saved with a cardiac bypass at St. Luke’s Hospital, which required a ventilator and oxygen. (I’m very lucky and doing fine now.)
With the pandemic under control in China, Sinovac is exporting it to 22 nations. In addition, the Chinese are offering expertise and patent rights for countries to produce their own.
He says. “It wasn’t put on the table, vaccines versus 5G,” but the inference is easy to draw.
(Incidentally, recent results from many countries suggest the Chinese and Russian vaccines work well..)