Over 300,000 Brazilians Die Of COVID-19

Brazil has registered more than 300,000 deaths in connection with Covid-19 since the pandemic started, behind the United States with 545,000 deaths in the same period.

The Health Ministry, which said this on Thursday, put the exact number of deaths at 300,685 people at 8 pm (2300 GMT) tally, including over 2,000 deaths in the previous 24 hours.

A day earlier, Brazil recorded 3,000 COVID-19 deaths in a day for the first time.

In the largest country in Latin America, more than 12.2 million coronavirus infections have been recorded so far.

Intensive care units are working at maximum capacity in most states.

The country’s populist right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, played down the coronavirus from the start, rejecting a nationwide lockdown for economic reasons.

dpa/NAN