Brazil’s death toll from the novel coronavirus has surged past 34,000 to become the third-highest in the world, surpassing Italy’s, according to official figures released on Thursday.
The South American country reported a new record of 1,473 deaths in 24 hours, bringing its overall toll to 34,021, behind only the United States and Britain.
Brazil has now confirmed 614,941 infections, the health ministry said — the second-largest caseload in the world, behind the US.
The surge came as the World Health Organization declared South America “a new epicenter” of the pandemic.
Brazil, a country of 210 million people, has been the hardest-hit in the region.
President Jair Bolsonaro has fiercely criticized coronavirus stay-at-home measures, even as the number of infections and deaths continues to soar.
Earlier in May, the right-wing leader had said he was sure that Brazil would “return to normalcy” soon, even though the pandemic has aggravated in the country and according to estimates by the health ministry, would peak after a few weeks.
The President’s anger also focused mainly on Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria, and Rio de Janeiro governor Wilson Witzel, who were at the forefront of the regions hardest hit by the coronavirus and decreed “soft” quarantines in their territories.
Earlier, Brazil was the sixth country in the world with the most deaths, behind the US, UK, Italy, Spain and France, after the confirmation of the first on March 17.
Meanwhile, coronavirus worldwide cases are nearing 6.7-million mark taking positive patients toll to 6,697,140 with 393,102 deaths while 3,244,329 have recovered, according to Worldometer figures.