Bolsonaro’s Far-Right Guru Who Dismissed ‘Moronavirus’ Pandemic Dies of COVID

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has declared a national day of mourning after his COVID-denying mentor died of the virus. Olavo de Carvalho, 74, was a longtime right-wing crusader in Brazil who was crucial in Bolsonaro’s shock rise to power in the 2018 presidential election. Carvalho’s relatives announced his death Monday, but didn’t say how he died. However, his estranged daughter, Heloísa de Carvalho, revealed Tuesday that her dad died from COVID-19. He had spent the pandemic playing down the severity of the virus, dismissing it as the “moronavirus” and writing in a tweet in May 2020: “The fear of a supposedly deadly virus is nothing more than a little horror story designed to scare the population and make them accept slavery as they would a present from Father Christmas.” In a mournful statement, Bolsonaro described his mentor as “one of the greatest thinkers in our country’s history.”