Brazil virus death toll surpasses 80,000
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazil's coronavirus death toll surpassed 80,000 Monday, according to health ministry figures, as the country hit second-hardest in the world continued struggling to control the pandemic.
The figure, second only to the death toll in the United States, quadrupled in two months. Brazil passed the mark of 20,000 COVID-19 deaths on May 21.
Recently, the Latin American country of 212 million people has regularly registered more than 1,000 new deaths a day -- though the figure for Monday was lower, at 632, bringing its overall death toll to 80,120.
The country has confirmed 2.1 million total infections.
Experts say under-testing means the real numbers are probably much higher.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who is infected himself, faces criticism for downplaying the virus and urging state governors to reopen their economies despite health officials' recommendations.
The far-right leader is currently in quarantine, along with several infected members of his cabinet. But he previously defied state authorities' stay-at-home measures, whose economic impact he argues could be more damaging than the virus itself.
Bolsonaro, who famously compared the virus to a "little flu," regularly hit the streets with no face mask until he got infected, shaking hands and taking pictures with supporters at rallies.
Like US President Donald Trump, whom he admires, Bolsonaro, 65, touts the anti-malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as promising treatments, and is taking the latter himself, despite a lack of evidence of their effectiveness against COVID-19.
The World Health Organization said Friday the outbreak in Brazil appears to have finally reached a plateau.
There is "an opportunity here now for Brazil... to suppress the transmission of the virus," said WHO health emergencies chief Michael Ryan, urging the country to "take control."
But though the level of daily deaths and infections has stabilized, it remains high.
On average, Brazil has registered more than 1,040 new deaths and 33,000 new infections a day over the past week.
"The WHO talks about a plateau... but the problem is, the level remains very high, and it looks set to stay that way for quite some time," said Mauro Sanchez, an epidemiologist at the University of Brasilia.
Gaining control "will depend on what we do in terms of public policy, and on whether people follow it," he told AFP.
Only the United States has more infections and deaths than Brazil in the pandemic, with 3.8 million and 140,811, respectively.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
