After closing the deadliest month in the pandemic, Brazil began April with 3,769 new deaths in one day

Brazil started April with 3,769 new deaths in the last 24 hours and 91,097 new infections, which has reached a balance of 325,284 deaths and 12,839,844 cumulative cases since the start of the pandemic.

The Latin American giant closed in March with more than 66,000 deaths, more than double that recorded in February, in the middle of collapse of the health system and despite the measures to restrict public activities.

The country has accumulated multiple daily records of the number of deaths due to covid-19, the last this Wednesday, with 3,869 deaths, a marked upward trend despite the fact that in February the 2,000 daily deaths were never reached.

March was the worst month in the impact in Brazil of covid-19 and during the month 66,573 deaths were recorded, against 30,438 recorded in February, for a cumulative total of 321,515 deaths since the first death was recorded on March 12, 2020, in Sao Paulo , according to data from the Ministry of Health.

According to these figures, The number of infected people reached 12.75 million people at the end of March, 2.2 million more than at the end of February, for a population of around 210 million.

These data confirm Brazil, the second country with the highest number of people infected and dead, after the United States, which has a population of around 330 million, according to information from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The latest information from WHO locations The United States with 545,887 deaths from covid-19, and behind Brazil, Mexico (202,633 deaths) and India (162,927 deaths).

But if you compare the evolution of the last seven days, Brazil tops list of countries with highest death toll, nearly 19,000, against nearly 7,000 registered in the United States and about 3,500 in Mexico, according to the WHO.

Collapsed health system

This evolution of the pandemic in the most populous country of Latin America is happening as Brazil’s healthcare system collapsed, with many sites unable to admit more patients to their intensive care units.

In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the UCIS occupancy rate is close to 90%. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, the wait for a bed in these special hospital units can last up to 24 hours. At the same time, cities like Sao Paulo have had to resort to nightly burials.

As of March this year, there was a 56% growth over the bodies that were buried the previous month, with data closing on March 30.

Slow vaccination process

In the same way, follow slow down the vaccination process, which has already benefited 11% of the population with its first dose and 3.2% with the second, up to a total of nearly 19 million vaccines.

The Ministry of Health reported on Thursday that In the coming days, it will launch the largest distribution of one-time vaccines since the start of the campaign, with 9.13 million doses. These vaccines will be mainly intended for health workers and people over 65 years of age.

The pandemic has forced authorities to order periodic shutdowns of non-essential activities. In the cities of Sao Paulo and Rio there is a public holiday which started last Friday and will end this Sunday. These activity restrictions have, however, been frequently criticized by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has come to call the pandemic a “little flu” and who has made continued calls for a return to normalcy.

“Hunger kills more than the virus itself”, The president reiterated this Wednesday, which, as usual, appeared in front of journalists without a mask, unlike the other members of his team who accompanied him.

With information from EFE

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