Six months on: Brazil’s coronavirus situation, in charts

In mid-August, Brazil got a rare uplifting piece of news: Imperial College London reported that the country’s coronavirus contagion rate had dropped below 1 for the first time since the virus began spreading in the country. In practical terms, Brazil’s R number of 0.98 meant that every 100 infected individuals would be expected to infect 98 others, who would then in turn infect 96, and so on. 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 — a sage piece of advice after the contagion rate rose back to 1 a week later.

Still, there are limitations to Imperial College London’s findings. The first is that the...