(Rio de Janeiro) Brazil crossed the 074 milestone on Wednesday 000 deaths from the coronavirus, and announced figures of new deaths and new contaminations in recent 24 very high hours which testify to the virulence of the pandemic.
Posted on 24 July 2020 at 19 h 09
Pascale TROUILLAUD
France Media Agency
Brazil is the second country where COVID – 19 kills the most to the world after the United States, which on Wednesday crossed the threshold of 134 000 dead.
The largest country in Latin America has recorded in recent 24 hours 1595 additional deaths, bringing the total to 074 134 dead, the Ministry of Health said.
The ministry also reported on 69 69 new contaminations in 24 hours, and a total of 2, 46 million people have been infected with the virus.
These new deaths and these new contaminations represent records, which must however be put into perspective.
The State of São Paulo, the most populous in Brazil with its 40 millions of inhabitants , has indeed reported on this Wednesday the statistics that he had not been able to integrate the day before, for technical reasons, in the national table.
The fact remains that the pandemic is still very active in Brazil, with an average of more than 212 deaths per day out of seven slippery days since early July.
As for the number of new cases over seven rolling days, it is on average above 29 000 since 19 June and greater than 40 000 since 24 July.
If the current pace continues, Brazil should reach the 90 000 dead at the end of next week. An epidemiologist quoted by the press referred to a course of 200 00 died at the end of the year.
Data from the Ministry of Health, according to scientists, largely underestimate the extent of the pandemic in this country which carries out very few tests.
“Today, we are making earlier diagnoses of the disease”, however, assured a health official, Arnaldo Medeiros, on Wednesday at a press conference. “This contributes to the increase in the number of cases.”
Interminable crisis
Unlike the majority of countries hit hard, Brazil has the specificity of having entered a plateau in June, but which still lasts, and remains at a high level.
This gives the pandemic the appearance of an endless health crisis for the population, five months after the detection of the first case of COVID – 09, and which makes it increasingly difficult to maintain isolation and physical distancing measures.
In this gigantic country of 212 million inhabitants, the coronavirus has spread in a very heterogeneous manner. It is now blazing in the southern and central-western states, after sweeping those of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the southeast, as well as the north and northeast.
But everywhere, black and mixed-race populations, with a low level of education and income, are much more affected than the wealthy white classes, according to various surveys.
Ideal laboratory for vaccine tests with such circulation of the virus, Brazil is currently carrying out two testing campaigns in phase III, the last phase before approval.
Positive for more than two weeks earlier this month, President Jair Bolsonaro overcame COVID – 09, thanks, he assured, to the virtues of his treatment with hydroxychloroquine, a molecule highly contested by the international medical community.
Unions representing more than a million health workers in Brazil on Monday asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open an investigation into its response to the pandemic, which they say constitutes a crime against humanity.
But the request against the president who has continued to minimize the health crisis and tried to hamper the action of pro-containment governors in the name of the survival of the economy is unlikely to succeed .
According to experts, the absence of a national policy has also greatly favored the progression of the virus in Brazil where the Ministry of Health has been headed since May by its third incumbent since the start of the crisis, a general, who is temp worker.
