Scientists Help Governors to Confront Coronavirus in Brazil

A videoconference held Tuesday morning brought together Governors of Brazil's northeastern states, including Rui Costa, the Workers' party governor of Bahia, and members of the Scientific Committee of the Northeast Consortium to combat the spread of coronavirus.

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Doctors, scientists, physicists, and researchers came together to assist Brazilian governors in taking the right health decisions to confront the pandemic.

"It is a war. We need scientific support to win it," Costa, who presides the council, said.

The committee should remain active until the end of the pandemic and will hold periodic meetings with Brazilian scientific authorities and other countries, such as Italy, Germany, and China, to discuss solutions in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19.

It will also issue bulletins with all the region's numbers related to the disease and will release guidelines based on the research conducted by the group.

The move came as Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has been heavily criticized both inside and outside the country for putting millions of lives at risk with his "poor and irresponsible" response to the crisis.

While the president was mocking health experts, including his health minister, minimizing the outbreak and launching a campaign dubbed, "Brazil can't stop," 201 people died so far from the COVID-19 and confirmed cases topped 5,717, according to the data compiled by United States-based Johns Hopkins University.