Brazil experienced its highest yearly death toll in 37 years

Welcome to “Number of the Week,” where we choose a single figure that helps understand what is going on in Brazil. This week, we show that Brazil registered its highest death toll since 1984 last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

14.9%

bump in the number of deaths in 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic hit Brazil hard and caused the death of nearly 195,000 people in the country last year alone, as was revealed at the beginning of the year by the health secretariats. And according to statistics released on Thursday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2020, Brazil registered 195,965 more deaths compared to 2019. 

The data thus show that the health crisis caused the biggest increase in the number of deaths in Brazil – either in absolute and percentage terms – since 1984. In all, the country registered 1,513,575 deaths last year, a 14.9-percent bump compared to 2019 (1,317,292). 

Highest on record. According to IBGE, the greatest variation previously observed was from 1992 to 1993, when a bump of 56,402 deaths, or a 6.7-percent increase, was registered.

• “The increase in the number...