Brazil set daily records for new coronavirus cases and deaths related to nearly 1,600 deaths on Wednesday, and a government under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro determined to ease blockades designed to quell the outbreak.
Brazil ranks second after the United States in the number of cases and deaths confirmed by the coronavirus.
The 69,074 new confirmed cases and 1,595 additional deaths reported by the Ministry of Health pushed the country more than 2.5 million cases and a number of deaths of more than 90,000 people.
However, the increase in deaths was due in part to the country’s most populous state, Sao Paulo, which reported the number of deaths over two days instead of one.
The record number of deaths in Brazil for a single day was established on June 4, when 1,473 deaths were reported. Deaths have been increasing for five weeks in a row as the coronavirus has spread to new regions, averaging over 1,000 per day.
Authorities say Sao Paulo did not report COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday due to a count error. As a result, the 713 deaths he confirmed Wednesday included two-day figures. The state also reported 26,000 new cases.
President Jair Bolsonaro has struggled against restrictions on economic activity, and the disease has advanced as governors and mayors have yielded to pressure from the capital, Brasilia
In some cases, Brazilians have crowded into bars and public squares full of people without masks, often defying local rules.
Global test field
Last week, Brazil recorded 7,677 deaths from COVID-19, the most deaths in any week since the pandemic began, despite repeated claims that the outbreak had peaked.
“Brazil is experiencing the worst phase of the pandemic,” said Alexandre Naime, head of the infectious disease department at São Paulo State University.
“Paradoxically, public policy and personal behavior go in the opposite direction, as if we were not experiencing a daily tragedy,” he added.
Bolsonaro’s government announced on Wednesday that it would lift the ban on foreign travelers flying to the country that was imposed in March, provided they have health insurance coverage for their trip.
New hot spots are also appearing across the country.
While Sao Paulo and neighboring Rio de Janeiro were the first affected by the virus, health officials have expressed growing concern about the outbreaks in the central-west and extreme south of the country as winter comes.
“We present national data but it is as if we had [multiple] COVID-19 pandemics with different regions of the country behave differently, “said Health Surveillance Secretary Arnaldo Correia de Medeiros at a televised press conference.
The magnitude of the outbreak has made Brazil a global testing ground for pharmaceutical companies to test possible vaccines.
A Brazilian research institute said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with China’s Sinopharm to start what would be the fourth significant trial of a possible vaccine in the country.
Bolsonaro himself has breached social distancing guidelines by joining supporters in demonstrations around Brasilia in recent months. He fell ill with coronavirus this month and spent weeks in partial isolation before recovering.
The right-wing populist has argued that the economic damage from the blockages is worse than the disease itself, which he has called “a little flu” that can be cured with unproven treatments, involving the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.
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