Brazil becomes the country with most new deaths in the world

May 25, 2020 9:32 2 min read

On Sunday, Brazil recorded more new coronavirus deaths than any other country in the world: 653 — with a total number of 22,666 casualties. The U.S., which still leads the world in confirmed cases, recorded 20 fewer deaths.

What is more worrisome about this milestone is that Brazil’s testing levels are dangerously low. While the U.S. has run 44,587 tests per 1 million people, in Latin America’s largest country, the rate is only 3,461 per 1 million people. Many scientists estimate that the real coronavirus tally is 15 to 20 times higher than the official numbers. On Friday, the World Health Organization declared South America as the new coronavirus epicenter, mainly because of the situation in Brazil and Ecuador.

Yesterday, the Trump White House moved to block the entry of non-U.S. citizens coming from Brazil. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has determined that Brazil “is experiencing widespread, ongoing person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”