(Rio de Janeiro) On Thursday, Brazil recorded more than 100,000 new cases of COVID-19 for the first time within 24 hours, after the epidemic had already killed more than 300,000 there, according to the Ministry of Health.
Specifically, there were 100,158 new infections, bringing the total number of infections to 12.3 million.
The ministry also reported 2,777 deaths within 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 303,462.
Brazil is the country with the largest number of deaths and infections with Coronavirus after the United States.
The situation has steadily worsened since February, due to, among other things, non-compliance with health recommendations and the emergence of a local type of virus, called P1, which is considered to be much more contagious.
Nissan and Toyota announced, on Thursday, a temporary suspension of production at their Brazilian factories for 15 and 10 days, respectively, due to the negative development of the health situation, a measure recently announced, among other things, by Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.
After coming under fire for his handling of the epidemic, President Jair Bolsonaro has given signals in recent days to change course. The far-right leader has spoken particularly in favor of speeding up the vaccination campaign, after repeatedly questioning the effectiveness of vaccines.
In his live broadcast on social media on Thursday, he nonetheless continued to criticize the partial containment measures.
“If the policy of radical lockdown of everything continues, we do not know where our Brazil will end up,” he said. “But I want to be clear: We want to fight the virus,” he added.
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