Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — With Brazil emerging as one of the world’s most infected countries, President Jair Bolsonaro is deflecting all responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, casting blame on mayors, governors, an outgoing health minister and the media.

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 23 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – Brazil registered a record number of new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, with 20,803 cases reported, and exceeded 1,000 deaths in one day for the third time, the government said.

According to the Ministry of Health, the total number of confirmed cases rose to 330,890, while deaths in the country rose to 21,048, with a daily increase of 1,001, which put the fatality rate at 6.4 percent.

On Thursday, Brazil established another record by registering 1,188 deaths in one day.

23 May 2020; AFP: Brazilians got a shocking look Friday at an expletive-laced meeting between President Jair Bolsonaro and his cabinet when a Supreme Court judge released a video at the center of an investigation targeting the far-right leader.

The April 22 cabinet meeting is under scrutiny by prosecutors probing allegations by former justice minister Sergio Moro that Bolsonaro tried to interfere in federal police investigations.

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 22 (NNN-Xinhua) — Brazilian police have confiscated a record 28 tons of marijuana discovered inside a truck near the border with neighboring Paraguay, the Federal Police force said.

The largest ever drug bust in Brazil took place on Wednesday, in an area between the towns of Tacuru and Iguatemi, in south Mato Grosso do Sul state.

Authorities uncovered the cache of drugs after a routine inspection of a hotel in the border city of Ponta Pora, where a guest behaved suspiciously when questioned by police officers.

SAO PAULO, May 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The mayor of Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo, has said its health system could collapse as demand grows for emergency beds to deal with coronavirus cases.

Bruno Covas said the city’s public hospitals had reached 90% and could run out of space in about two weeks.

São Paulo is one of the country’s worst-hit regions, with almost 3,000 deaths so far.

On Saturday, Brazil overtook Spain and Italy to become the nation with the fourth-largest number of infections.

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 18. /TASS/: The number of coronavirus cases in Brazil has risen by nearly 8,000 to 241,080, according to updated data from the country’s Health Ministry.

As many as 94,122 patients have recovered, another 130,840 remain under medical observation. The death toll has risen by 485 to 16,118. Efforts are underway to determine the causes of another 2,450 deaths, which may be related to the coronavirus.

BRASILIA, May 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The coronavirus pandemic has hit 38 indigenous groups in Brazil, raising fears for populations that have a history of being decimated by outside diseases, the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples’ Association (APIB) said. 

“The virus is reaching indigenous territories across Brazil with frightening speed,” the association said in a statement.

An APIB survey found 446 cases of the new coronavirus and 92 deaths among the affected groups, mainly in the Brazilian Amazon.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s health minister resigned Friday after less than a month on the job in a sign of continuing upheaval over how the nation should battle the coronavirus pandemic, quitting a day after President Jair Bolsonaro stepped up pressure on him to expand use of the antimalarial drug chloroquine in treating patients.

BRASILIA, May 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras reported a steep net loss for the first quarter of the year and warned more heavy losses were on the horizon because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The company posted a net loss of 48.5 billion reals for the first three months of the year, its worst quarter since it was hit by a huge corruption scandal in 2014-2017.

BRASILIA, May 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil registered a record number of new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, surpassing France’s tally to become the sixth-worst hit country, as the coronavirus sends the economy towards its worst year since at least 1900.

The government confirmed 11,385 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing its total count to 188,974 cases of the coronavirus since the outbreak began. Early on Wednesday, France revised its total number of confirmed and suspected cases down 0.3 per cent to 177,700.