Brazil accounts for a quarter of the daily coronavirus global deaths, more than any other nation.
There is growing recognition among experts, mayors and governors that shutdowns are no longer avoidable. Restrictions on activity they implemented last year were half-hearted and consistently sabotaged by President Jair Bolsonaro.
The nation’s seven-day average of 2,400 deaths stands to reach to 3,000 within weeks, experts told the Associated Press. Spikes of daily deaths could soon hit 4,000; on Friday there were 3,650 deaths.
Bolsonaro remains unconvinced of any need for clampdown, which leaves local leaders pursuing a patchwork of measures to prevent the death toll from spiraling. However, a more contagious variant is rampaging across Brazil. New daily cases topped 100,000 for the first time on Thursday.
Brazil’s state-run science and technology institute, Fiocruz, on Tuesday called for a 14-day lockdown to reduce transmission. Delivery delays from AstraZeneca have slowed vaccines, with only 2% of the nation fully vaccinated.
There have been 12.4 million confirmed cases and more than 307,000 confirmed deaths in Brazil, second only to the United States.
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