Brazil has reported more than 27,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus since its update on Friday. (File)
Sao Paulo:
On Saturday, Brazil removed data from its COVID-19 outbreak from public view, as President Jair Bolsonaro defended delays and changes in official record keeping for the world‘s second-largest coronavirus outbreak.
The Brazilian Ministry of Health deleted data from a website that had documented the epidemic over time and by the state and the municipality. The department also stopped giving a total number of confirmed cases, which exceeded 6.72,000 – more than anywhere else in the United States – or a total number of deaths, which exceeded Italy this week, nearly 36,000 on Saturday.
“The aggregated data … does not reflect when the country is,” said Bolsonaro on Twitter, citing a note from the ministry. “Other actions are underway to improve case reporting and confirmation of diagnoses.”
Bolsonaro downplayed the dangers of the pandemic, replaced medical experts from the Ministry of Health with military officials, and opposed state blockages to fight the virus, hampering the country’s public health response.
Neither Bolsonaro nor the ministry gave any reason to delete most of the data from the covid.saude.gov.br website, which had been a key public resource for tracking the pandemic. The page was removed on Friday and reloaded on Saturday with a new layout and only a fraction of the data, reflecting only deaths, cases and recoveries in the past 24 hours.
Late on Saturday, the ministry reported 27,075 new confirmed infections and 904 related deaths since its update on Friday.
The government criticized this week for postponing the publication of its daily count, previously available around 5 p.m. but published in recent days around 10 p.m.
“Transparency of information is a powerful tool in the fight against the epidemic,” wrote Paulo Jeronimo de Sousa, head of the Brazilian Press Association, in a note accusing the government of “trying to silence the press at this late hour. “
Asked by reporters on Friday about the delayed release, Bolsonaro skimmed the country’s most-watched news program, Jornal Nacional, which begins at 8:30 p.m.
“This is the story of Jornal Nacional,” he joked, adding that the series “likes to say that Brazil has the record for deaths”.
Brazil reported more new cases and deaths from COVID-19 than any other country on four consecutive days this week.
Bolsonaro tweeted on Saturday that a subsequent daily update “would avoid under-notification and inconsistencies”.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
