With over 21,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths, Brazil has the fifth-highest death total from coronavirus in the world. But the real tally might be significantly higher. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country has recorded an additional 11,730 deaths by acute respiratory distress syndrome — a condition caused by Covid-19, but also by other diseases such as the flu or pneumonia. According to the Health Ministry, these cases will remain forever undetermined — either because the patients were not tested while still alive or because samples were not collected the right way.
“As the country is not facing another epidemic as relevant as Covid-19, it is safe to assume that a huge chunk of these deaths is caused by the coronavirus,” said epidemiologist Antonio Silva Lima Neto, a member of the Covid-19 Northeast Scientific Committee.
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