Brazil is expected to officially exceed 400,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Thursday evening, when data from the Ministry of Health of the second country most bereaved by the pandemic behind the United States will be released.
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A few hours before this announcement, a consortium of major media which has been establishing an independent count for months announced that this threshold had been crossed, with 400,021 deaths recorded in 14 months of health crisis.
After four months of an uncontrollable rise in the number of deaths and new cases of contamination, the curves have stabilized since mid-April, but on a still very high plateau.
This slight decline is however very fragile, according to epidemiologists, who fear the effects of the reopening of bars, restaurants or beaches in cities like Rio de Janeiro for example.
The fact remains that the number of deaths has increased exponentially since the beginning of the year in Brazil, under the effect of the P1 variant: it took more than five months to go from 100,000 to 200,000. dead on January 7, but then only 77 days to reach 300,000 dead (March 24) and 37 for 400,000.
The second week of April was the most devastating, with two days with more than 4,000 deaths recorded in 24 hours.
In this huge country of 212 million people, the death rate is the highest in the Americas and the southern hemisphere, at 189 per 100,000, surpassing that of the United Kingdom (188).
A parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up in the Senate on Tuesday to study how the government handled the health crisis, deemed inept and irresponsible by many specialists.
The investigation will focus in particular on the Manaus crisis, which saw a serious shortage of oxygen and the death of dozens of asphyxiated patients. It puts President Jair Bolsonaro back to the wall, a year and a half away from the presidential election where he wants to run for a second term.
But the one who has continued to minimize the crisis and fight against the containment measures reaffirmed this week that he “made no mistake”.
Vaccination is progressing very slowly in this country which has a long tradition of vaccine effectiveness. To date, only 28 million people have received a first dose, or 13.2% of the population, and 12 million the second.