Brazil’s daily death toll from the coronavirus soared to a staggering 1,179 on Tuesday as President Jair Bolsonaro continued focusing on chloroquine as a potential cure.
Meanwhile, U.S. President, Donald Trump said he’s proposing a travel ban on Brazil.
Before Tuesday, the highest daily toll had been 881 deaths on May 12. According to the Ministry of Health, the pandemic has killed at least 17,971 civilians in Brazil.
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Meanwhile, Brazil overtook Britain on Monday to become the country with the third-highest number of reported infections, behind Russia and the United States. The confirmed cases in Brazil also leaped by a record 17,408 on Tuesday. Now, the total number of people who tested positive for the virus stands at 271,628.
How Bolsonaro is managing the virus
Bolsonaro shares a similar ideology with Trump on virus management. Besides, he has been blamed for his management of the crisis as he opposes restrictions on movement, which he finds to be too harmful to the economy.
Bolsonaro said Interim Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello would release new recommendations on Wednesday. This will broaden the recommended usage of antimalarial chloroquine to treat coronavirus.
Over the past month, two qualified doctors quit as health ministers, while Bolsonaro opposes public health expert guidance.
Bolsonaro told the Blog do Magno website that Pazuello, a successful army general, will sign the latest chloroquine guidelines and keep the top job for now. He said that his mother is 93 years old and that he has a bottle of chloroquine on hand whenever she wants it.
Moreover, Trump revealed on Monday that he was taking chloroquine as a preventative measure. He said to reporters on Tuesday, “I don’t want people to come out here to infect our people. I don’t want people sick out there either. We assist Brazil with ventilators … Brazil has a lot of problems, no doubt about it.”
Representatives of the Pan American Health Organization said in a virtual meeting that they were worried about the spread of the virus. They were specifically concerned about the tri-border area of the Amazon between Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
They called for specific steps to protect vulnerable communities of indigenous, disadvantaged, and racial minorities.
