A medical team transporting a patient with Covid-19 to Portel.
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Brazil recorded more than 100,000 new cases of Covid-19 for the first time on Thursday in 24 hours, while the epidemic has already killed more than 300,000 there, the Ministry of Health reported.
There were precisely 100,158 new contaminations, bringing the total toll to 12.3 million cases.
The ministry also reported 2,777 deaths in 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 303,462.
Brazil is the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths and infections after the United States.
The situation has steadily worsened since February, due, among other things, to non-compliance with health recommendations and the emergence of a local variant of the virus, called P1, considered much more contagious.
On Thursday, Nissan and Toyota announced the temporary suspension of production at their Brazilian factories for 15 and 10 days respectively, due to the negative development of the health situation, a measure recently announced among others by Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.
Under fire for his management of the epidemic, President Jair Bolsonaro has given signs in recent days of a change of course. The far-right leader notably spoke in favor of an acceleration of the vaccination campaign, after repeatedly questioning the effectiveness of vaccines.
In his direct broadcast on social networks on Thursday, he nevertheless maintained his criticism of the partial containment measures.
“If the policy of radical closure of everything continues, we do not know where our Brazil will end up,” he said. “But I want to be clear: we want to fight the virus,” he added.
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