Brazil adds almost 70,000 infections and surpasses 14 million Covid cases (April 20)

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil registered in the last 24 hours 69,381 new infections and surpassed 14 million confirmed cases of covid-19, while the number of deaths is already approaching 380,000, after adding 3,321 victims on Tuesday, the Government informed.

According to the latest balance sheet of the Ministry of Health, 14,043,076 infections and 378,003 deaths have accumulated in the country since the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, just over a year ago.

Today, the number of deaths reported is the lowest figure for a Tuesday since March 23rd, when 3,250 deaths were registered.

On Tuesdays, the numbers of deaths and contagions usually explode due to the low number of registrations due to the usual lack of personnel during weekends.

In the last month, daily deaths reached the highest recorded in the country with 4,249 deaths on April 8 and 4,195 deaths two days earlier, in what has been the most fatal week for Brazil, with some 15,000 victims due to the coronavirus.

The South American power is the country with the second-highest number of deaths globally, behind the United States, and the third-highest number of infections, behind the U.S. and India.

MASS VACCINATION STILL AWAITS

With its more than 210 million inhabitants, Brazil is still far from starting mass vaccination to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 53 million vaccines have been distributed in the South American giant. Some 33.5 million have already been administered, which means that 16 % of the population in the country has received at least the first dose against covid-19.

However, only 6% of the population has received both doses.

The lack of basic inputs for the production of vaccines in the country – coming from China – has reduced the production of vaccines, which has led to a new suspension of immunizations in several regions of the country, mainly in the northeast.

Since the vaccination campaign began in the country on January 17, some of the main capital cities have had to stop immunizations up to twice.

The shortage of vaccines has also been felt in some municipalities of the state of Rio de Janeiro, which this week had to stop their campaigns. However, its homonymous capital city has been able to continue with the immunizations.

To motivate the Cariocas, comparsas, and samba, schools have begun to lend their venues as immunization points. This Tuesday, the Portela, one of the most traditional schools in Rio, joined the campaign to immunize men aged 61 years and health professionals aged 48 years and older.

The famous school is another of the ’emblematic’ vaccination posts that extra, like the modern Museum of Tomorrow or the Planetarium, which is added to the more than 250 points implemented by the City Hall for this work.

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