Brazil: With 67,977 cumulative COVID-19 deaths, April is already the deadliest month since the start of the pandemic

Brazil hit a new monthly record on Saturday with 67,977 deaths from covid-19 in April, the deadliest month pandemic in that country, surpassing the mark of 66,573 deaths in March, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

In the last 24 hours, Brazil has recorded 3,076 deaths, with a daily average of 2,545 deaths per day last week. 71,137 new infections were also recorded this Saturday, with a daily average of over 60,000 new cases over the past two weeks.

Despite these figures, specialists observe a stabilization of case and death curves from the virus in the second country with the most deaths from the pandemic.

This Friday, a newsletter from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) reported that “Over the past two weeks, there has been a stabilization of cases and deaths from covid-19, which characterizes a new level of transmission. This level, Fiocruz estimates, should remain around 3,000 deaths per day for the next few weeks.

Brazil started 2021 with a rebound in infections and deaths from covid-19, after the transmission rate declined in the second half of 2020. Before March, the deadliest month in the pandemic was July 2020, with 32,881 dead.

This new stage of the pandemic in Brazil is marked by the increase in young people in intensive care units, as well as in death statistics. In the first days of April, “The 20-29 age group was the one with the largest increase in the number of deaths from covidus (1,018%)”said Fiocruz. In the case of infections, the greatest increase occurred in people aged 40 to 49 years (1,173%).

While immunization is advancing among priority groups (aboriginals over 60 and medical personnel, among others), the federal government continues to change immunization goals due to delays in negotiations with the laboratories. To date, the Ministry of Health plans to complete the priority groups (77 million people) in September.

Brazil, with 212 million inhabitants, only applied the two doses to 5.8% of the population (12.4 million).

During, local and regional authorities deplored the lack of medical supplies, as sedatives, necessary for the intubation of patients, the distribution of which is the responsibility of the federal government.

Faced with this situation, justice ordered the Senate to investigate whether Jair Bolsonaro’s government has made any omissions in its handling of the pandemic.

The far right leader promoted agglomerations from the start of the pandemic, questioning vaccines and attacking governors and mayors for defending the suspension of non-essential activities to decrease the transmission of the virus. On Friday, the president threatened to send the army to the streets if the measures to restrict mobility continued.

With information from AFP

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