Brazil reached the mark of 500,000 deaths by COVID-19 this Saturday (19), becoming the second country in the world to surpass half a million deaths due to the disease. On June 15, the United States exceeded 600,000 deaths.
According to data from the state health secretariats gathered by the press consortium that monitors the pandemic in the country, Brazil reported 20.483 new COVID-19 cases and 1.401 additional deaths on Saturday, bringing total cases to 17.822.659 and the death toll to 500.022. The number of cases may be underestimated since many infected people do not undergo an exam to confirm the diagnosis.
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Of the ten countries with more deaths by COVID-19, four are Latin American countries: Brazil, Mexico (230,959 deaths), Peru (189.933 deaths – Peru is the country with the most deaths per 100,000 inhabitants) and Colombia (98,746 deaths). Data are from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
According to Our World in Data, from the University of Oxford, Brazil has already given 85.3 million doses of COVID-19 (considering the first and second doses). The number of Brazilians fully vaccinated against COVID-19 represents only 11% of the country’s population; on the other hand, Brazilians partly vaccinated represent 17% of the population.
For comparison, Chile, which leads vaccination in Latin America, has already completely immunized 48% of its population; and Uruguay, 38%.
The Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo made a graph in which it shows that 500,000 deaths are equivalent to 181.8 folds the number of deaths in the New York Twin Towers attack, when 2,750 people died; to 3.8 folds the number of people killed by the Hiroshima bomb and to 544.7 folds the number of victims of the landslides in Rio de Janeiro in 2011.
