Brazil suffers highest daily death toll
Brazil has suffered its highest daily death toll since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, with the confirmation of 1,972 new fatalities.
The news, which took Brazil’s total death toll to nearly 270,000, comes as the South American lives through the most severe moment in its 13-month outbreak and sparked renewed calls for a nationwide lockdown.
“São Paulo is on the verge of a public health collapse unprecedented in its history,” warned Miguel Nicolelis, a leading Brazilian scientist. “Football must stop now. Schools must close. Churches must close and services stop now.”
A record 517 deaths were recorded in Brazil’s most populous state, São Paulo, on Tuesday.
But Brazil’s far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, has declared he has no intention of ordering restrictions and last week told citizens to stop “whining” about the worst public health crisis in the country’s history.
Átila Iamarino, a Brazilian biologist who has become one of the country’s most prominent scientific voices during the pandemic, told the Guardian: “Without a shutdown, what we are going to witness here is unthinkable.
“ The numbers are insane … I simply cannot conceive a situation in which there is no shutdown. Nobody with a shred of humanity wants to see such a situation.”
Updated