Brazil’s contagion rate rises again after promising result last week

Last week, for the first time since April, the coronavirus contagion rate in Brazil showed signs of slowing down, with Imperial College London studies finding that the country’s R number — representing the rate of the virus’s effective reproduction — had fallen below 1. At the time, however, The Brazilian Report warned that this was not yet reason for celebration, as these figures would have to be sustained for several weeks in order to truly declare the deceleration of Brazil’s epidemic.

Indeed, one week on, Imperial College London saw that the country’s R number has risen once again, landing exactly on 1.

In practical terms, this means that every person infected with the virus is expected to infect another individual, thus maintaining a constant spread of Covid-19. When the contagion rate drops below 1, this signifies that the spread is gradually decreasing.

Meanwhile, the situation elsewhere in Latin America is extremely troubling, with Ecuador and Paraguay showing high R numbers of 1.32 and 1.27, respectively.

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