President Jair Bolsonaro, who has famously compared the virus to a ‘little flu,’ has clashed with state and local authorities over their use of stay-at-home measures and business closures to contain it.
Representational image(Photo by MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP)
Brazil on Sunday said it had registered more than 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak and about one million infections, as the second worst-affected country in the world struggles to control the disease. The Ministry of Health reported 641 new deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the count to 50,591, with 1,083,341 recorded infections on Monday.
Brazil is the second most-affected country in the world after United States, which accounts for 119,975 deaths and 2,280,912 cases.
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President Jair Bolsonaro, who has famously compared the virus to a “little flu,” has clashed with state and local authorities over their use of stay-at-home measures and business closures to contain it. The far-right leader argues the economic impact of such measures risks being worse than the virus itself.
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The spread of COVID-19 is accelerating in Latin America, with Mexico, Peru and Chile all hard-hit. Mexico has recorded 180,545 cases and 21,825 deaths. Peru passed 8,000 deaths on Sunday as it prepares to reopen shopping malls on Monday after 99 days of confinement.
Argentina on Sunday passed 1,000 deaths, underscoring the region’s problems. Chile nearly doubled its reported coronavirus death count Saturday to 7,144 under a new tallying method that includes probable fatalities from COVID-19.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases on Sunday, with the total rising by 183,020 in a 24-hour period. The biggest increase was from North and South America with over 116,000 new cases, according to its daily report, reports The Guardian. Total global cases are at 8,952,428 with 468,346 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University tracker.
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