Numbers of the week: Oct. 10, 2020

created by the Brazilian Central Bank, officially opened registrations at the beginning of the week. Until Friday, the number of ‘keys’ issued to Brazilians reached roughly 24 million. The new payment system, which will allow for instant cash transfers, begins its operation on November 16. Besides allowing near-instant transfers and payments outside of commercial working hours, the system is free to use in sending and receiving money. PIX users will only have to provide their unique key — usually their individual tax ID — in order to receive payments, seen as a <a href="https://brazilian.report/newsletters/brazil-daily/2020/10/07/pandemic-brought-millions-brazil-banking-system/">revolutionary measure within Brazil’s financial system</a>. </p> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>50,000 fewer tourism companies</h2> <p>Nearly 50,000 companies in Brazil’s tourism industry — accounting for 17 percent of the sector’s employers — went out of business between March and August 2020. The data comes from the National Confederation of Commerce and Tourism (CNC). The worst-affected businesses were <a href="https://brazilian.report/business/2020/07/08/states-greenlight-bars-and-restaurants-but-many-owners-open/">bars and restaurants</a>, with 39,500 closing their doors permanently. As in many other sectors, the majority of the firms which suffered the most were small businesses. As a result, the tourism industry lost 13.8 percent of its workforce and, between March and September, revenues amounted to only one-quarter of their potential. Meanwhile, losses reached BRL 207 billion in the past six months.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>26 percent of Covid-19 victims under 60 in Brazil</h2> <p>Among countries with high coronavirus numbers, there is a clear pattern of the majority of patients who <a href="https://brazilian.report/coronavirus-brazil-live-blog/">die from Covid-19</a> being 60-plus years old. While that is also the case in Brazil, the majority is much slimmer: some 26 percent of fatal victims in the country were under 60. As a comparison, in Italy, less than 5 percent of all deaths were in patients below the age of 60. This can partly be explained by Brazil having a younger population, as senior citizens comprise one-third of Italian residents. But the numbers also suggest other factors in play, such as poorer nutrition conditions, less access to healthcare, and inferior living conditions. The findings are further corroboration to the idea that Brazil’s massive inequality levels have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus in the country.</p> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>1,000 deaths per capita in Peru</h2> <p>Despite being one of the first Latin American countries to impose a lockdown (even before European countries such as the United Kingdom), Peru became the first country in the world to top the mark of 1,000 deaths per million people, surpassing 33,000 Covid-19 deaths this Friday, October 10. As a comparison, Brazil — the country with the highest absolute numbers of cases (4.9 million) and deaths (147,817) in the region — currently has a rate of 700 deaths per million. Only the tiny republic of San Marino, with its 732 confirmed cases and 42 deaths, has a comparable rate.&nbsp;</p> <p>There are many factors to explain <a href="https://brazilian.report/coronavirus-brazil-live-blog/2020/10/06/peru-to-hit-1000-covid-19-deaths-per-million-people/">Peru’s coronavirus collapse</a>, such as inequality, lack of information among poor classes, people ignoring isolation measures, and, most importantly, an economy in which more than 71 percent of the population has an informal job.&nbsp;</p> <div class="flourish-embed flourish-chart" data-src="visualisation/3932912" data-url="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/3932912/embed" aria-label=""><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>16 governors caught the coronavirus</h2> <p>Brazil is one of the few Latin American countries to have a <a href="https://brazilian.report/podcast/2020/07/08/explaining-brazil-podcast-bolsonaro-is-one-in-a-1-6-million/">president testing positive for Covid-19</a>. Besides Jair Bolsonaro, Bolivia&#8217;s interim leader Jeanine Áñez, Honduras&#8217; Juan Orlando Hernández, Guatemala&#8217;s Alejandro Giammattei, and the Dominican Republic&#8217;s Luis Abinader have also been infected. Brazil, however, sustains its position as the country with the most cases and deaths in the region. </p> <p>And 16 out of its 27 state governors (some of them commanding states that are as large as countries) have also caught the virus. The 16th was <a href="https://g1.globo.com/ce/ceara/noticia/2020/10/07/camilo-santana-e-diagnosticado-com-covid-19.ghtml">Camilo Santana</a>, governor of northeastern state Ceará, who announced the news on his Twitter account. So far, none of them have developed severe infections. </p> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>5 million Covid-19 cases</h2> <p>And the state governors are not alone. More than 5 million Brazilians have also been infected by the coronavirus, with a total number of 148,957 deaths and 4.4 million recovered cases. Also, the country’s rolling average of new deaths from October 1 to October 7 remained at 631, 9 percent lower than the previous 14 days. </p> <div class="flourish-embed flourish-map" data-src="visualisation/3949660" data-url="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/3949660/embed" aria-label=""><script src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/embed.js"></script></div> <hr class="wp-block-separator"/> <h2>148 indigenous candidates in Roraima</h2> <p>According to the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court, the northernmost state of Roraima has 148 self-declared indigenous people among its 1,858 candidates registered in the 2020 elections, the highest number of any electoral zones this year. However, the percentage of indigenous candidates represents only 7 percent of the total. The Roraima Indigenous Council reports that at least 50,000 <a href="https://brazilian.report/society/2020/06/14/coronavirus-accelerating-genocide-brazil-indigenous-people/">indigenous people</a> live in the state, spread out across 246 different communities. More than 250 indigenous candidates were elected in the 2016 regional elections, according to the National Indigenous School Education Forum (FNEEI).