
Almost half of Brazilians think President Jair Bolsonaro bears “no responsibility at all” for the country’s more than 100,000 dead from the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s second-highest death toll, according to a new Datafolha poll.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro received the best approval rating of his term on Friday, boosted by his popularity among recipients of COVID-19 stimulus payments despite the carnage the pandemic has caused in Brazil.

A series of high-profile resignations from Brazil’s economic team have left Economy Minister Paulo Guedes shaken but committed to keep pushing for reforms in the government. The losses are also the most visible sign yet that Guedes’ ambitious economic agenda is suffering a downgrade in size and scope, although his austerity drive received a crucial backing from President Jair Bolsonaro and congressional leaders.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday angrily denied the existence of fires in the Amazon rainforest, calling it a “lie”, despite data produced by his own government showing that thousands of fires are surging across the region.

Brazil's death toll from COVID-19 passed 100,000 on Saturday and continued to climb as most Brazilian cities reopen shops and dining even though the pandemic has yet to peak. Confronting its most lethal outbreak since the Spanish flu a century ago, Brazil reported its first cases of the novel coronavirus at the end of February.

Brazilian officials say they can start making COVID-19 vaccines developed by British and Chinese researchers within a year. Experts say it will take at least twice as long, leaving Brazil reliant on imports to slow the world's second-worst outbreak.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's chief of staff, Army General Walter Souza Braga Netto, has tested positive for COVID-19, his office said on Monday (Aug 3), becoming the seventh Brazilian minister to have contracted the disease.

Fresh off a bout of Covid-19, President Jair Bolsonaro said that nearly everyone will probably end up catching the new coronavirus urging Brazilians to “face up to it” and saying there was nothing to fear. He also admitted taking antibiotics since he was suffering from “mouldy lungs”

Facebook said on Saturday it has put a global block on certain accounts controlled by supporters of Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro implicated in a fake news inquiry, a day after it was fined for not complying with a Supreme Court judge's order to do so.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's wife and one of his ministers have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an official statement on Thursday, as the spread of the novel coronavirus showed no signs of slowing in the country with the world's second-worst outbreak after the United States.