RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Rumors and conspiracy theories have been circulating over the past week about the whereabouts of Zé Gotinha, the mascot for the national vaccination program.
The scramble surrounding the costumed Zé Gotinha began on Wednesday after former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva drew attention to his recent absence.
“Where is our beloved Zé Gotinha?” da Silva said in a speech criticizing President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
Zé Gotinha, whose name roughly translates as “Joe Droplet” and who looks like an overgrown Casper the Friendly Ghost, was created in the 1980s to help the Ministry of Health promote vaccination against the poliovirus and put children at ease.
‘The vaccine ads were very heavy. “They are associated with something terrible, tragic, life-threatening,” Carla Domingues, former coordinator of the national vaccination program between 2011 and 2019, told The Associated Press.
Gotinha has changed that and due to its success he has since appeared regularly to warn about the importance of preventing measles, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria and, more recently, COVID-19.
But the last time Gotinha was seen in public during a ceremony in Brasilia was on December 16, which introduced the country’s vaccination program. The character, much loved among children, rejected Bolsonaro’s attempt to shake hands in the name of social distance.
Da Silva, a left-wing rival of Bolsonaro, presented his own theory on what happened to Gotinha: “Bolsonaro fired him because he thought he came from the Labor Party.”
One theory is that the mascot’s advertising services are not needed at the moment, as Brazil is using its limited doses to vaccinate the elderly and people in priority groups, not yet children.
Many on social networks speculate about Gotinha’s fate. One person spoke of the drama that Gotinha was unemployed. Another one reinterpreted a typical poster of a missing child, with the image of the mascot and the caption “disappearing”.
“Cheers for the speedy recovery of Zé Gotinha. Only this hero can save us, ”said a Twitter user who speculated that the mascot was suffering from an illness.
Since coronavirus vaccinations began in Brazil, Bolsonaro has questioned its effectiveness. He has recently begun to return such skepticism, but still claims that drugs such as hydroxychloroquine may help prevent hospitalization, although it shows no benefits in rigorous studies.
Due to low stocks and slow rollout, nearly 5% of Brazilians have so far received at least one vaccine shot, according to the National Council of State Health Secretaries in Brazil. But 79% of Brazilians want to be vaccinated, according to a poll published by the Datafolha on January 23. This is 6 percentage points higher than the previous poll in December.
On Friday, a drawing of Gotinha appeared on social media of Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the president and a federal lawmaker. The mascot was depicted with a syringe in the form of an assault rifle. “Our weapon is the vaccine,” the legislature wrote.
The creator of Gotinha, artist Darlan Rosa, was horrified.
‘(Gotinha) was considered an educational character. There is nothing educational about a gun, ‘Rosa told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. Carlos Latuff, another cartoonist, drew an image in which Gotinha broke a gun over his knee.
Domingues, the former coordinator of the vaccination program, said Gotinha was an integral part of the vaccination efforts.
“Gotinha was planning to make vaccination a holiday for children, and it was a huge success,” Domingues said. “He was one of the principals responsible for changing the perspective on immunization.”