Brazil: Experts say subtest likely means real numbers are much higher (File)
Rio de Janeiro:
Brazil on Wednesday recorded a record daily number of infections and deaths from the novel coronavirus, sending its overall death toll to over 90,000.
The country, which has been hit harder than anyone except the United States in the pandemic, has reported 69,074 new cases and 1,595 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
That brought the figures to a total of more than 2.5 million cases and 90,134 deaths since the start of the pandemic, the health ministry said.
Experts say the subtest in the country of 212 million likely means the real numbers are much higher.
Technical issues likely contributed to the high daily figures.
The health ministry said on Tuesday that problems with its online reporting system had delayed figures for Sao Paulo, the most populous state in Brazil and the one with the most cases and deaths.
Still, the numbers paint a grim picture of how the country is faring against the virus.
It has regularly recorded more than 1,000 deaths per day since early July and more than 30,000 new cases per day since mid-June.
President Jair Bolsonaro is criticized for his handling of the pandemic.
The far-right leader called the virus a “little flu” and attacked lockdown measures taken by state and local authorities to contain it, arguing that the economic fallout could be worse than the disease.
Even after contracting the virus himself earlier this month, forcing him to work in quarantine at the presidential palace for more than two weeks, Bolsonaro continued to downplay the severity of the pandemic.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
