Brazil rose to the second spot in terms of global coronavirus cases on Friday, behind only to the United States. The country has 330,890 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Brazil surpassed Russia in the tally. The total daily deaths stood at 1,001, taking total deaths to 21,048. On Monday, Brazil surpassed Britain to become the country with the third highest number of coronavirus cases. The US has more than 1.5 million cases.
Recently, WHO’s emergencies director, Mike Ryan, expressed concern for Brazil. “In a sense, South America has become a new epicentre for the disease. We have seen many South American countries with increasing numbers of cases,” Ryan said at a news conference.
“Clearly there is a concern across many of those countries, but clearly the most affected is Brazil at this point,” he added.
Sao Paulo is the worst hit city with coronavirus cases in Brazil. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, President Jair Bolsonaro Bolsonaro has lost two health ministers, after pressuring them to promote the early use of anti-malarial drugs such as chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Many high-profile public health experts have also left. Several experts have been replaced by soldiers.
“In terms of attack rates, the highest attack rates are actually in Amazonas: about 490 persons infected per 100,000 population, which is quite high,” Ryan noted.
Meanwhile, globally, 5,308,190 people have been infected by coronavirus so far, and the total number of deaths from the disease now stands at 340,075.
