Gravediggers at the Vila Formosa Cemetery in São Paulo burying victims of Covid-19 on Thursday.Credit…Victor Moriyama for The New York Times
Brazil’s coronavirus outbreak passed a grim landmark on Saturday, surpassing Britain to record the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States’, according to a New York Times tally.
As of Saturday morning, Brazil had acknowledged 41,828 virus deaths. The figure for the United States was 114,752, and for Britain 41,481. Brazil’s daily death toll is now the highest in the world, bucking the downward trend that is allowing many other major economies to reopen.
Experts point to President Jair Bolsonaro’s rejection of the emerging scientific consensus on how to fight the pandemic — including his promotion of unproven remedies such as the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — as one of the factors that helped tilt the country into its current health crisis.
Mr. Bolsonaro has sabotaged quarantine measures adopted by governors, encouraged mass rallies and repeatedly dismissed the danger of the virus. He has asserted that the virus was a “measly cold” and that people with “athletic backgrounds,” like himself, were impervious to serious complications.
Earlier this week, his administration stopped disclosing comprehensive coronavirus statistics, though the data was restored after a Supreme Court order.
The New York Times
