Brazil’s Economy Minister Paulo Guedes, 71, received the first dose of vaccine against COVID-19 in Brasília. He received a shot of CoronaVac, from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac.

Guedes, who was wearing a mask when he was immunized, is part of the risk group for COVID-19 because of his age. He has publicly defended the need for mass vaccination in Brazil to allow economy’s rebound.

Brazil’s Federal District is currently vaccinating elderly people aged 67, which means that, by the age group, Guedes could have been vaccinated before. Besides Guedes, the chief minister of the Institutional Security Office, Augusto Heleno, 73, has also received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vice President Hamilton Mourão, 67, has already said he will be vaccinated.

President Jair Bolsonaro, 66, said several times in the recent past that he would not be vaccinated and rejected the possibility that vaccination would be mandatory. He also questioned the vaccine’s effectiveness and estimated that less than half of the population would take the immunizer.

The president, yet, has changed his speech about the vaccine in recent weeks and allies have started to defend vaccination against Covid-19.

(Translated by LABS)