Brazil on Thursday became the third country in the world deploring the most deaths linked to the new coronavirus, exceeding the threshold of 34,000 deaths, ahead of Italy, after a new record of deaths recorded in 24 hours. The latest report from the Ministry of Health reports 34,021 deaths and 614,941 confirmed cases, with 1,473 deaths recorded since Wednesday evening, knowing that the official figures are largely underestimated according to specialists.
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Three weeks since the country no longer has a Minister of Health
With 212 million inhabitants, Brazil has a population three times larger than that of Italy, which was the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe and has 33,689 deaths. Brazil nevertheless deplores 153 deaths from Covid-19 per million inhabitants, against 557.2 for Italy or 587.8 for the United Kingdom. Brazil is the second country in the world in terms of infected people, behind the United States, with 30,925 new cases confirmed within 24 hours.
For the third consecutive day, the largest country in Latin America records a record daily deaths, after 1,349 Wednesday and 1,262 Tuesday. The ministry's figures were not released until after 10 p.m. (1 a.m. GMT Friday), with no explanation being given for this late schedule. They were communicated at 5 p.m. at the start of the pandemic. It has been almost three weeks since Brazil has had no Minister of Health since the resignation of Nelson Teich, replaced in the interim by Eduardo Pazuello, an active general.
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Jair Bolsonaro continues to challenge containment
The state of Sao Paulo, the richest and most populous of the country, remains the most affected, with 8,560 dead and 129,200 confirmed cases, ahead of that of Rio de Janeiro (6,327 dead and 60,032 people infected). These two states have however started this week a gradual recovery of economic activity.
The situation remains critical in poor northern states, such as the Amazonas (2,183 dead) and Para (3,416), or the northeast, such as Ceara (3,813) or Pernambuco (3,124). Even if the curves of the pandemic remain in full rise, the extreme right president Jair Bolsonaro continues to advocate the return to normal activities in the name of job preservation, calling into question the containment measures taken by the governors of States.