One death every 64 seconds

The Health Ministry’s latest coronavirus update came with a three-hour delay — and without a press conference from government officials. It reported another 1,349 confirmed deaths over 24 hours — amounting to a rate of one per minute. Officially, data is published every day at 7 pm, but the release has consistently been delayed for the past ten days.

Deaths

The new record for daily deaths was mainly propelled by Rio de Janeiro, with 324 new casualties. Paraíba (+35), Alagoas (+24), Minas Gerais (+17), Brasília (+14), and Mato Grosso (+6) also recorded spikes.

The Southeast region — home to 42 percent of the Brazilian population — leads the country with 15,000-plus deaths. If the four states of the region (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, and Espírito Santo) were a country of their own, it would have the seventh-highest number of deaths in the world — more than Mexico, Belgium, or Germany.

Reopening

São Paulo was the state with the most new cases over the past 24 hours — 5,188. Regardless, the state started a process to reopen its economy on June 1. According to Governor João Doria, occupancy rates of the state’s intensive care beds dropped from 73.5 to 72.4 percent, while the number of available beds rose from 11.8 to 13.3 per 100,000 people, while hospital admittances dropped 3 percentage points.

Of course, these numbers are linked to the effects of social isolation. We will soon discover the effects of a reopening process deemed as “rushed” by experts.

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