Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has failed in managing the coronavirus crisis, teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg said on Friday, a day after a record rise in deaths in the South American nation.
President Jair Bolsonaro threatened on Friday to pull Brazil out of the World Health Organization after the U.N. agency warned governments about the risk of lifting lockdowns before slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Brazil registered a record number of daily deaths from the novel coronavirus for a second consecutive day, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday, even as city and state authorities move aggressively to open commerce back up.
Brazil surpassed 30,000 deaths from the coronavirus outbreak on Tuesday as the disease continued to rip through South America's worst-hit country. Figures released by the health ministry showed a new record 1,262 deaths in the previous 24 hours, as well as 28,936 new infections.
The United States has delivered two million doses of the anti-malarial medicine hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to Brazil to fight COVID-19, the White House said Sunday, though the drug has not been proven effective against the coronavirus.
Brazil reported a record 33,274 new cases of the new coronavirus this weekend, the health ministry said, and the death toll surpassed that of France and now ranks below only the United States, Britain, and Italy.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro joined supporters protesting against Congress and the Supreme Court in Brasilia on Sunday, stoking concerns of an institutional crisis in the nation that now has the world's second-highest number of coronavirus cases after the US.
Brazil's four largest news media outlets said they have withdrawn their reporters from coverage of President Jair Bolsonaro's official residence due to the lack of security to protect them from heckling and abuse by his supporters.
President Jair Bolsonaro slammed Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday for investigating an alleged disinformation and intimidation campaign involving his supporters, as a political crisis mushroomed amid the country's accelerating COVID-19 outbreak.
Brazil's death toll from the new coronavirus surpassed 25,000 on Wednesday, as the country emerged as the latest epicenter in the pandemic. The health ministry said it had confirmed 1,086 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the fifth time the daily toll has exceeded 1,000 since the crisis accelerated in Brazil a week ago.