Brazil reached 300,000 deaths confirmed by COVID-19 on Wednesday and became the second country in the world to exceed this number, hit by a new wave of infections with record numbers of deaths in recent days.
The United States reached that number on December 14, but its population is larger.
The Brazilian Ministry of Health reported 2,009 daily deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, reaching a total of 300,685. The day before, the country set a record with 3,251 deaths in a single day.
According to local press reports, the most recent figures could have been affected by changes in the government’s accounting system. The newly appointed Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, said at a press conference that he would review whether the numbers had been artificially reduced.
With the death toll at its highest so far in the pandemic, the governors and mayors of the South American country have expressed fears that April could perform as badly as March for overcrowded hospitals.
In just the last 75 days, Brazil reported 100,000 confirmed deaths, an increase that health experts attribute to a lack of political coordination, the emergence of new, more contagious variants and a disregard for health protocols in many parts of the country.
President Jair Bolsonaro met Wednesday with heads of other branches of the government in order to coordinate efforts to respond to the pandemic. But he did not propose any measures to deal with the outbreak.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the severity of the pandemic, insisting that the economy must remain active to avoid further adversity, and has criticized the health measures imposed by local governments.
–
