RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Monday, July 13th, Brazil recorded 20,286 new cases of coronavirus and 733 deaths in 24 hours, according to the Ministry of Health. In total, the country counts 1,884,967 infections and 72,833 deaths.
Yesterday, the State of São Paulo reported a drop in the number of deaths from Covid-19 for the third consecutive week. Last week, there were 1,706 deaths, 27 fewer than in the preceding week. Meanwhile, states like Rio Grande do Sul and Mato Grosso do Sul have seen their situations worsen.
The Rio Grande do Sul Infectology Society yesterday published a memo advocating the enforcement of a lockdown in the state, to prevent a potential collapse of the healthcare system, as the case numbers are increasing. The number of deaths from Covid-19 in the capital city Porto Alegre has doubled in the last two weeks.
In Mato Grosso do Sul state, Marquinhos Trad, the mayor of its capital Campo Grande, said a lockdown is under consideration and that the state capital is heading toward it.
The impact of the coronavirus on the economy is also beginning to be measured. According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), hunger in Latin America is growing and reaching appalling levels.
The region is likely to experience its worst social crisis in decades: some 20 million Latin Americans and Caribbean citizens have joined the list of those threatened by hunger, causing these countries to experience the highest growth of people in vulnerable situations in the world in 2020.
Among the good news, on the other hand, recent studies have shown that the size of the herd immunity to contain new waves of the disease may apparently be lower than anticipated.
Cities that have suffered greatly from the virus, such as New York in the United States, and Manaus in Brazil, are not experiencing new peaks after the economic reopening, which suggests that the populations in these locations are more protected despite having a lower number of infections than expected to claim there was mass contagion.
However, the authorities warn that this trend does not mean that people can relax in terms of care.
Source: Veja