Brazil today overcame the 500,000 death toll from covid-19 at a time when the country could face the third wave of the pandemic, according to a report from a media consortium.
Since the start of the pandemic, the country has had 500,022 deaths and 17,822,659 infected, according to the consortium, which maintains records in parallel with the Brazilian Ministry of Health’s report.
The data confirms that Brazil is the second highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world after the United States (601,500) and the third highest number of cases of the novel coronavirus after the United States (33.5 million) and India. (29.8 million).
The epidemiological situation has worsened again, and some experts acknowledge that Brazil is on the verge of a third wave of the pandemic.
The average daily number of infections rose to 72,000, close to a peak of 77,000 on 25 March. The average daily death toll has exceeded 2,000 over the past seven days, dropping to 1,600 in early June. However, this is still a long way from the 3,000 deaths reached on April 12.
Despite the numbers, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a denier, reiterated this week that infection is more effective than vaccination.
According to the French news agency AFP, the covid-19 pandemic has caused at least 3,853,859 deaths worldwide, resulting in more than 177.7 million infections.
In Portugal, of the 864,109 confirmed cases of infection, 17,062 have died, according to the latest bulletin from the General Directorate of Health.
Covid-19 is a respiratory illness caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, a type of virus discovered at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China that has spread rapidly around the world.
