GENEVA (Reuters) – Brazil’s coronavirus crisis appears to be stabilizing or even declining, the World Health Organization said Friday, providing information on the world’s second-largest COVID-19 focus.
The number of weekly infections detected has stabilized, transmissions are slowing and extensive care packages are less pressured, Mike Ryan, WHO’s lead emergency specialist, said at a news convention in Geneva.
“Overall, the one in Brazil is solid or down …and it has to go on,” Ryan said.
“There is a transparent downward trend in many parts of Brazil.Can this continue?
The most recent figures show that Brazil has registered more than 3.5 million cases of the new coronavirus and more than 112,000 deaths similar to the virus; both are the highest totals of the moment in the world, only the United States.
President Jair Bolsonaro has been the subject of intense complaints at home and abroad for his handling of the crisis, tossed the virus as nothing more than a “little flu,” appears in public without a mask, and when asked through a journalist.about the high death toll, he replied, “So what?”
Ryan, however, suggested caution. Brazil is a massive country and many parts of it are still experiencing an increase in the number of cases, while the number of cases remains from 50,000 to 60,000 and the death toll still exceeds 1,000 peak days, he said.
There’s a lot to do in Brazil, he said.
But giant countries like Brazil, India and the United States to the disease will go a long way to cut the global pandemic.
“Any good fortune in Brazil is a good fortune to the world,” Ryan said.
Stephanie Nebehay reports; Written via Jamie McGeever; Edited via Marguerita Choy
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