Brazil, considered the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, on Thursday recorded more than 1,000 deaths and a national record of infections in the past 24 hours. Some 26,417 new infections were identified, for a total of 438,238, according to the Ministry of Health of the second most infected country in the world, behind the United States (more than 1.7 million).
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Brazil had its third worst daily death toll on Thursday, with 1,156 dead, for a total of 26,754. The South American giant, the sixth most bereaved country on the planet, is now close to Spain and France (27,119 and 28,662 respectively), according to an AFP count stopped Thursday at 7 p.m. GMT.
No massive testing
Compared to its population of 210 million inhabitants, the figures for Brazil are less disastrous than other countries, with 125 deaths per million inhabitants, against more than 300 in the United States and 580 in Spain.
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But scientists estimate that the official figures could actually be fifteen times lower than the reality, since the tests are not carried out in a massive way.
Divergences between the governors
The pandemic is progressing in Brazil in a climate of exacerbated tensions between the governors, in favor of containment measures, and President Jair Bolsonaro, who considers them as an economic ruin.
Most states have imposed partial containment measures, although some have already started to relax them or have announced they will do so soon. The health system in some cases reaches saturation.
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The richest and most populous state of Sao Paulo is also the one with the most cases and deaths, with 6,980 deaths on Thursday and nearly 100,000 people infected. On Wednesday, Governor Joao Doria announced an extension until June 15 of confinement, while allowing the reopening of businesses in certain regions depending on the persistence of the epidemic. The state of Rio de Janeiro is the second in terms of deaths (4,846) and contaminations (44,886). Other states, such as Amazonas and Para in the north, or Ceara, in the northeast, have higher mortality rates.