Brazil reported lowest number of daily coronavirus infections in nine months

Brazil, one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus in the world, recorded 12,085 new infections in the last 24 hours, the smallest number for a day in the last nine months and with which the total number of cases since the start of the pandemic has approached 20.2 million.

The number of covid-19 infections in a day at the South American giant hasn’t been that low since November 8, when 10,550 infections were counted.

According to figures released on Monday by the Ministry of Health, In the past 24 hours, Brazil has also recorded 411 new deaths from the coronavirus, with what the total casualties since the start of the pandemic in February last year has exceeded 563,000.

According to the ministry bulletin, the 563,562 victims and 20,177,757 cases of covid-19 have accumulated until Monday make Brazil the second country with the most deaths in the world after the United States and the third with the most infections, behind the North American nation and India.

Despite high cumulative numbers, the impact of the pandemic continues falling hard in the country.

In addition to having recorded the lowest number of cases in the past nine months, Brazil reported on Monday the third lowest number of deaths in one day in seven months, since January 3, when it had 293 deaths. The lowest numbers of deaths since then were recorded last Monday (389), Sunday (399) and today (411).

This decline may be apparent because the Ministry of Health has admitted since the start of the crisis that the numbers tend to drop on Sundays and Mondays due to the lower number of officials processing data on weekends.

However, weekly averages confirm the marked slowdown in the pandemic.

Last week’s average deaths stood at 906 per day as of Monday, down 5.6% from the seven-day average (960 daily fatalities on August 2) and 18. 2% compared to two weeks ago (1,107 deaths per day on July 26).

The current death rate is less than three times lower than that recorded on April 12 of this year, when, at the height of the second wave of the pandemic, the average number of deaths from covid-19 in Brazil has reached a record 3,124 per day.

The average number of infections over the past week fell to 32,037 per day on Monday, the lowest in just over eight months since November 27, while the average was 31,169 cases per day.

The current average is a little less than half of that recorded on 23 june, when Brazil hit a record high average of 77,328 coronavirus cases per day.

According to the Ministry of Health, of the 20.2 million Brazilians infected, some 18.9 million have already recovered and been released, equivalent to 93.9% of the total, and A further 675,144 are still under medical care, corresponding to 3.4%.

The sharp drop in numbers reflects the progress of the vaccination campaign after a slow and delayed start in the country. According to the Ministry of Health, Brazil has applied 153 million vaccines as of Monday.

Of those vaccinated, 107.4 million received the first dose, which is equivalent to 50.7% of the 212 million Brazilians, and 45.6 million more received the second dose or single dose vaccine, corresponding to 21.5% of the population.

(With information from EFE)

Read on: