SAO PAULO, May 1 (Xinhua) -- Brazil began the month of May reporting 2,656 deaths from COVID-19 as well as 66,964 new cases, rasing the national death toll to 406,437 and the total caseload to 14,725,975, the Ministry of Health said on Saturday.
The daily average number of deaths in the last seven days was 2,421, while the figure for April was higher than 3,000, according to the ministry.
Sao Paulo, the most populous and hardest-hit state in the country, has reported 96,941 deaths and 2,918,044 cases, and the occupancy rate in the state's intensive care units has fallen from 91 percent to 78.7 percent.
