Coronavirus

⚠️ UPDATE: Brazil tops 60,000 confirmed cases, deaths reach 4,205

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Brazil has topped the 60,000-case mark for the first time. According to the latest update by the Health Ministry released this Sunday, the figures stand at 61,888 cases and 4,205 deaths countrywide. 

The lethality has fallen by 0.1 percent and now standards at 6.8 percent. According to the news portal G1, the top 10 cities by death rate are found in only four out of Brazil’s 26 states: Amazonas (3), Ceará (2), Pernambuco (3) and São Paulo (2). São Lourenço da Mata, Pernambuco is the city with the highest lethality rate in the country at 15.9 deaths per 100,000 people.

Manacapuru, Amazonas, has the highest infection rate in the country with 236.2 confirmed cases per 100,000 people. The city’s rate is almost twice that of the second-placed city–– Ceará’s capital Fortaleza. Ceará, however, has conducted over three times more tests than Amazonas.

Compromised data for cases and deaths

The Health Ministry’s update shows clear signs that data collection is compromised during the weekends. Since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on March 11, the number of new daily cases drops over almost every weekend — especially over the month of April. Last week, this Live Blog explained how this frantic variation in the numbers is a sign of how unreliable the official Covid-19 data might be.

Augusta Saraiva and Marcelo Soares

Augusta is a Brazilian journalism student at Northwestern University

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