Brazil reaches grim COVID-19 landmark

SAO PAULO. KAZINFORM Brazil recorded its 300,000th COVID-19 fatality on Wednesday, only 75 days after registering 200,000 deaths, according to local media.
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The somber milestone was reached just a day after the country’s daily death toll from the virus passed 3,000 for the first time and while conditions are showing little sign of improvement, Anadolu Agency reports.

Fewer than 2% of Brazil’s 5,570 cities have a population of less than 300,000, which means that if all of the country’s COVID-19 victims lived in the same city, many municipalities would be decimated.

The situation in Brazil shows that unlike most countries, where COVID numbers are already decreasing, the pandemic is far from over here.

From March 2020, when the first coronavirus fatality was reported in Brazil, until Wednesday afternoon, the country had registered 300,015 deaths.

The number is expected to grow by the end of the day, as most states have yet to release their full data, with only 10 of the 27 federation units having done so.

By far, Brazil leads in the number of daily deaths in proportion to its population.

In the country, 1.12 per 100,000 people die daily of COVID-19 on average, while the numbers are much lower in countries that follow, such as Italy (0.67), France (0.39), Mexico (0.37) and even the US (0.30), the global leader in COVID-19 victims.

This all adds up to a reigning negationism and to the recent nomination of Brazil’s fourth health minister since the start of the pandemic. Cardiologist Marcelo Queiroga took office on Tuesday in a closed ceremony not registered in the official agenda.

Twenty-two-year-old Renan Ribeiro Cardoso from Sao Paulo is one of the country’s many victims, succumbing to the virus on March 13.

His biggest dream was to witness the marriage of his parents, who have been living together for 26 years. He had already planned the party and paid for all the ceremony arrangements, but it had to be postponed due to the pandemic.

The family could hardly imagine that the much anticipated date would be the same day that Renan would die. With COVID-19, Renan became the first victim of the lack of ICU beds in Sao Paulo city.

Within a period of only 12 days, lawyer Israel Vieira from Santo Andre, a city in the Sao Paulo metro region, saw his father and two paternal grandparents die from COVID-19.

The grim figure was reached as the country is witnessing a total collapse of its health system, with the number of cases and deaths increasing in all regions amid a slow and disorganized vaccination program in which only around 3% of the population has taken the two doses necessary for complete immunization.

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