Sharjah24 – Reuters: Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for COVID-19 hours after accompanying President Jair Bolsonaro to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, the government said.
Queiroga will remain in New York in quarantine, the government's communications office said.
"The minister is doing well," the statement said. It added that the rest of the delegation tested negative for the virus.
Queiroga told CNN Brasil that he had worn a mask the entire time that he was in the U.N. building.
Bolsonaro, a vaccine skeptic, defied U.N. rules that asked all those attending the assembly to be vaccinated. He has bragged about not getting vaccinated.
The health minister was the second member of the Brazilian delegation in New York to have tested positive. A young diplomat who was part of an advance team preparing Bolsonaro's visit tested positive on the weekend and was isolated.
COVID-19 has killed 591,440 Brazilians in the world's second-deadliest outbreak after the United States.
As vaccination advances in the country, the rolling 14-day average of COVID deaths has fallen to 519 a day, compared with almost 3,000 at the peak of the pandemic in April.
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