Daily High of 37,000 New Coronavirus Cases in Brazil in 24 Hours

HAVANA TIMES – In Brazil, which has been hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic in South America, the number of confirmed new infections has reached a daily high of almost 37,300 within 24 hours.

With 1,338 deaths recorded between Monday and Tuesday evening in connection with Covid-19 – the respiratory disease caused by the virus – the number of victims also reached the second highest value since the outbreak of the pandemic, the news portal G1 reported on Tuesday evening, based on data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

So far, 45,456 people have died, and more than 928,800 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

The actual numbers are likely to be much higher, also because the country carries out very few tests for the virus.

Latin America’s most populous country has seen a rapid increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the past two weeks, now ranking second only to the United States in terms of infections and deaths worldwide.

Despite the high numbers, measures imposed to halt the spread of the virus have been relaxed in many places in Brazil, with shops and beaches now open again.

President Jair Bolsonaro has downplayed Covid-19, calling it at the beginning of the pandemic a “little flu.”

More than a quarter of the newly registered deaths by Tuesday evening, or 365, were in the state of Sao Paulo, followed by 239 new deaths in Rio de Janeiro. So far, the greatest number of deaths have occurred in these two states.