Brazil recorded on Tuesday March 23 a record number of daily deaths linked to Covid-19 since the start of the health crisis, with 3,251 additional deaths in twenty-four hours, according to the Ministry of Health.

This brings the total of deaths to 298,676 since the appearance of a first case in late February 2020. 

The record underscores the scale of the epidemic in Brazil, where a chaotic vaccination campaign and muddled restriction measures have brought hospitals across the country close to rupture.

The far-right president Jair Bolsonaro assured in the evening that the country would resume "very soon a normal life" thanks to the vaccination which he has however long decried.

"I want to reassure the Brazilian people and inform them that vaccines are guaranteed. By the end of the year we will have reached more than 500 million doses of vaccine for (vaccinate) the whole population," said the head of the 'State.

Jair Bolsonaro inducted his new Minister of Health, the fourth since the start of the epidemic, in a closed-door ceremony, the ministry said.

The Head of State is struggling to keep the epidemic under control, after having minimized the virus, sowing doubt about the effectiveness of vaccines and fighting the confinements decided locally.

Only 2.6% of Brazilian adults received two doses of the vaccine and 7.6% of the population received a first injection, according to a study by the Fiocruz Institute, a federally funded institute producing the AstraZeneca vaccine, spearhead of the Brazilian vaccine campaign.

Change of tone

Another change of tone, Jair Bolsonaro, who wishes to run for re-election in 2022, expressed his solidarity "with all those who have lost a loved one".

The speech was greeted by saucepan concerts, in protest, in the main cities of the country, such as Rio, Sao Paulo and Brasilia, according to AFP journalists.

The virulence of the second wave of the pandemic has put stress on the health system: the occupancy rate of the intensive care units exceeds 80% in the majority of the 27 Brazilian states and the oxygen reserves for patients severely affected by Covid -19 reached "worrying" levels in six states.

The government of the state of Sao Paulo, the most populous in Brazil with 46 million inhabitants, announced on Tuesday that it had recorded more than 1,000 deaths from Covid-19 for the first time in 24 hours.

According to a TV Globo tally, more than 130 people have died from failing to get an intensive care bed in time in that state.

With Reuters and AFP

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