A new weekly epidemiological update by WHO (World Health Organization) showed that Brazil took the lead in the number of new COVID-19 contaminations globally. In its weekly balance sheet, WHO recorded 58,698 new deaths in the last week, a decline of 3% globally from the previous week. The increase of deaths in Brazil was 24%.

In the past week, Brazil reported 494 153 new COVID-19 cases (20% increase); followed by the United States (461 190 new cases; 8% increase), France (161 159 new cases; 12% increase), Italy (155 076 new cases; 12% increase), and India (148 249 new cases; 30% increase).

In a press conference on Wednesday, Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri, Incident Manager at PAHO, stated that Brazil had transmission spikes two weeks after Christmas and now two weeks after Carnival.

He believes that the easing of public measures therefore triggered contamination geographically in the country, and now the coronavirus has a very high increasing transmission in all regions of Brazil. “This is the main difference between 2020 pandemic wave. As of yesterday, Brazil’s Ministry of Health said that all 27 federal units are reporting ICU capacity rate of more than 70%, and many patients are waiting hospitals beds.”

According to him, PAHO has cleared stated the strict implementation of health measures guided by epidemiological reports should be implemented in all levels administrations in Brazil, including state and municipal levels.

According to Dr. Carissa F. Etienne, PAHO Director, in the last week Brazil reported the second Covid-19 death toll worldwide. “The situation in Brazil demands cautionary care, to keep this virus in control by public health authorities. Local governments must implement measures to stop transmission. We can’t afford to wait.”

In the United States, there has been a 24% decline in the number of deaths, with a rate of 2.8 new deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Mexico, on the other hand, had 3.3 new deaths per 100 thousand inhabitants, an increase of 16% about the previous week.