Brazil Records 450,000 Covid-19 Deaths and Governments Tighten Restrictions Again

The country had more than 37 thousand new cases in 24 hours; health system is under pressure

Brazil reached 450,026 Covid-19 deaths this Monday (24), just 25 days after having passed the 400 thousand deaths mark. Although the moving average of deaths per day fell from the levels seen in mid-March, when it exceeded 3,100, the country has recorded more than 1,000 deaths per day for four months.

The country has the second highest number of deaths today, behind only the United States (589,000). In numbers of deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants, Brazil is in 11th position, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which monitors the numbers of the pandemic in the world.

Health systems continue to be overloaded with Covid-19 patients who need hospitalization and Intensive Care Units - in 14 states, more than 80% of the ICU beds were occupied last week, according to a Folha survey. Health secretaries have been alerting the federal government about the difficulty of expanding the number of beds, due to insufficient staff, and still see a lack of medications such as those in the intubation kit.

Hoping to control the progress of the coronavirus, vaccination has been moving at a slower pace in recent weeks. If 644 thousand Brazilians were immunized in April with the first dose per day, last week they averaged around 450 thousand per day.

Translated by Kiratiana Freelon

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