By The Associated Press
Brazil reached a grim milestone this Saturday: 100,000 deaths from COVID-19.
Five months after its first reported case, the country shows no obvious signs of overcoming the disease. The nation of 210 million people has reported an average of more than 1,000 daily deaths from the pandemic since the end of May and registered 905 in the last 24 hours.
The Ministry of Health indicated this Saturday that there were a total of 2,962,442 confirmed infections and 99,572 deaths from the coronavirus, figures only surpassed by the United States.
Like many other countries, experts consider that both numbers are far below the reality, due to insufficient diagnostic tests.
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In a tribute to the victims of COVID-19, the non-governmental organization Río de Paz placed crosses and a thousand red balloons on the sand of the popular Copacabana beach on Saturday.
Tribute in Brazil to the 100,000 people who have died due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic in the country. Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
"It is very sad. Those 100,000 represent various families, friends, parents, children, ”said Marcio Silva, 55, who lost his children to the pandemic and joined the tribute.
"100,000: Why are we the second country in number of deaths?" Read a banner. At the end of the tribute, the members of the body let the balloons fly into the sky.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who reported being infected in July, has been consistently skeptical of the impact of the disease and is in favor of removing restrictions on the economy that state governors have imposed to combat the pandemic. He has often been seen in crowds, sometimes without wearing a mask
"I'm sorry for all the deaths, they are almost 100,000 now, but we will find a way out," he said Thursday during a Facebook broadcast.
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Experts have complained about the lack of national coordination under the Bolsonaro government and the scattered responses from municipal and state governments, some of which reopened earlier than recommended by health experts.
"Administrative incompetence ruined our opportunity to have a good response to COVID," said Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil's Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials.
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Aug. 1, 202001: 38Brazil faces the pandemic with an interim Health Minister, Eduardo Pazuello, an army general who made his career in the field of logistics. Two former health ministers, both physicians, left the post over differences with Bolsonaro over social distance measures and the use of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug promoted by the president but found to be ineffective by most studies. against COVID-19, or even dangerous.
Bolsonaro, who has called COVID-19 a "little flu," says he recovered from his own infection thanks to that drug.
Many of Brazil's 27 states have begun to reopen stores and restaurants. The relaxation of health measures has varied from state to state, as has the pressure on the health system.
While the capital Brasilia has seen almost 80% occupancy in its intensive care beds, Rio de Janeiro's occupancy rate has now dropped to less than 30% in private hospitals. Here already opened shopping and dining centers and people have returned to the beaches.
