Covid-19: Brazil crosses the tragic threshold of 500,000 dead

The macabre count never ends in Brazil.

"500,000 lives lost due to the pandemic affecting our Brazil and the world," tweeted Marcelo Queiroga, without specifying the results of the last 24 hours.

As of Friday, his ministry had recorded 498,499 deaths, with a daily average of more than 2,000 deaths in the past seven days.

500 mil vidas perdidas pela pandemia que afeta o nosso Brasil e todo o mundo.Trabalho incansavelmente para vacinar todos os brasileiros no menor tempo possível e mudar esse cenário que nos assola há mais de um ano.

- Marcelo Queiroga (@ mqueiroga2) June 19, 2021

According to the Media Consortium, which brings together the country's main media groups and draws up a daily assessment based on reports from regional governments, 500,022 deaths were recorded on Saturday afternoon.

More than 60% of deaths (303,550) have been recorded since the start of the year.

Brazil, which has 212 million inhabitants, experienced a deadly second wave at the start of the year with more than 4,000 deaths per day.

He fears he will be hit by a third wave as the number of infections has spiked again.

"A high plateau of deaths and the possibility of a worsening in the weeks to come with the onset of winter".

According to the latest weekly report from the Fiocruz Foundation, a benchmark entity in medical research, Brazil is experiencing a "critical" situation, with "a high plateau (of deaths) and the possibility of a worsening in the coming weeks. with the onset of winter ”in the Southern Hemisphere.

The occupancy rate of beds in intensive care units exceeds 80% in 19 of the country's 27 states and 90% in eight of them, Fiocruz said.

Read alsoCovid-19: why is mortality soaring in Brazil?

Experts are worried about the slowness of the vaccination campaign, the spread of more aggressive variants and the lack of preventive measures on the part of President Jair Bolsonaro, opposed to confinement and the wearing of a mask. The Minister of Health Marcelo Queiroga, however, indicated in his tweet that he was working "tirelessly to vaccinate all Brazilians as soon as possible and to change this scenario which has afflicted us for more than a year". According to official data, 29% of the population has received an injection and only 11.36% is fully vaccinated.