Brazil recorded Saturday, July 31 an average of daily deaths over seven days of less than 1,000 for the first time in more than seven months, thanks to the advance of vaccination.
The latest report from the Ministry of Health shows 556,370 deaths and more than 19,917,855 confirmed cases for this country of 212 million inhabitants, the second in the world most bereaved by the pandemic after the United States.
With 910 new deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, Brazil has averaged 989 daily deaths over the last seven days.
That number had not been less than 1,000 since January 20, at the start of a particularly deadly second wave.
The number of deaths and contaminations in Brazil has been falling for several weeks, but epidemiologists fear a new outbreak of cases because of the Delta variant, which is already circulating in several states of the country.
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100 million first-time vaccinated
After a late and chaotic start due to the lack of available doses, vaccination has finally reached its cruising speed, with more than a million injections per day since June.
In total, more than 100 million people have received at least one dose and 40 million have been fully immunized.
At the beginning of the week, however, vaccination was suspended for several days in some large cities due to delays in deliveries of new doses.
On Thursday, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro announced a plan for the gradual relaxation of restrictions, including the authorization of the public in football stadiums with a gauge of 50% from September, only for vaccinated supporters, and the lifting of the obligation to wear a mask outdoors in November.
A Senate commission of inquiry has been looking for three months into how government President Jair Bolsonaro handled the health crisis. Management considered chaotic by specialists, with delays and suspicions of corruption in the purchase of vaccines.