Brazil reaches 120,828 deaths from COVID-19 with some of its beaches full

Brazil recorded 366 deaths linked to COVID-19 on the last day and has a total of 120,828 deaths, the government said on Sunday, leaving scenes of beaches full of bathers in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, two of the regions hardest hit by the pandemic. According to the Ministry of Health bulletin, the number of infected people in the country reached 3,862,311, after adding 16,158 new positive cases in the last 24 hours. This Sunday was the fourth consecutive day below the thousand deaths per day, although the figures during the weekends are usually lower due to the lower activity of public agencies and laboratories.

At first, the Ministry of Health reported 566 deaths from coronavirus on the last day, but shortly afterwards it reduced that figure to 366. That difference was added, however, to Saturday's balance so that the daily number of deaths recorded that day was 958 and not 758 as the portfolio initially reported. In absolute numbers, Brazil is the second most affected by the pandemic, only behind the United States, and six months after the first case, recorded on 26 February, the virus is still out of control in some regions of the country. The death rate from the disease in the country, which has a population of 212 million, now stands at 57.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.

Health authorities are also investigating a further 2,772 deaths that could have been caused by the disease. In addition, the number of patients recovered rose to 3,031,559, or 78.5% of all those infected. Encouraged by the good temperatures on Sunday, hundreds of bathers took to the beaches in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the two Brazilian states most affected by the pandemic in terms of the number of deaths (29,978 and 16,027 respectively), despite the health restrictions still in place.

The solution to the health emergency seems to be linked to the emergence of a vaccine. The high incidence of COVID-19 has made Brazil the world's testing laboratory, as human clinical trials of four vaccines are already underway in the country. The National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) also reported that it is working to reduce the registration deadlines for an eventual vaccine with the idea of approving it in up to 60 days, once all the necessary documentation is received.

According to the latest bulletin from the Indigenous Health Secretariat (Sesai), linked to the Ministry of Health, 377 indigenous people have died in Brazil from COVID-19, while 22,923 have been infected. The government's figures do not take into account the deaths and positive results of indigenous people in urban areas, so the numbers could be higher. In addition, a new controversy has arisen in recent days following the visit of an official delegation led by the evangelical missionary Ricardo Lopes, who is in charge of the state body that looks after uncontacted Indians, to the Vale do Javari region. The Javari Valley is located in the state of Amazonas, near the border with Peru, and is home to the largest isolated indigenous populations in the world.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Lopes delegation intends to go into the interior of this territory and visit some bases where professionals who deal directly with recently contacted indigenous people are located, something that may put these extremely vulnerable populations at risk from new diseases. In a note, the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley condemned the presence of Lopes, whose appointment was even suspended by the justice system because of his religious ties, and said that it was the result of "political games" aimed at "offering public positions to indigenous people".