Bolsonaro 'led Brazilian people into a canyon', says ex-health minister

Luiz Henrique Mandetta accuses president of playing a pivotal' role in steering economy towards catastrophe

Historians will savage Jair Bolsonaro for leading Brazilians into a deadly canyon" with his shambling, self-interested and anti-scientific response to Covid-19, according to his former health minister.

In an interview with the Guardian, Luiz Henrique Mandetta accused the Brazilian president of playing a pivotal" role in steering Latin America's largest economy towards a catastrophe. Bolsonaro played politics with citizens' lives at a time of global crisis, he said, as Brazil's death toll rose to more than 105,000. Only the US has suffered more deaths.