Brazil, nearly 55,000 new coronary cases in 24 hours

During the past 24 hours, the largest state of South America was marked by 1,206 dead and 54,771 infected. The figure of affected persons was the highest number of days since the beginning of the spread of the virus, suggesting that pandemic is far from over, writes “Reuters”.

Brazil is the second country in the world after the United States, both for the number of infections and the rate of victims. The first cases in this country were marked on February 26th. The spread of the disease has weakened support for President Jair Bolsonaro and has sparked fears of economic collapses.

According to many experts, the actual number of cases could be much higher than official figures because of the lack of massive population testing.

The number of one million is much less than the actual number of people who have been infected because there is a shortage of 5 to 10 times less”, said Alexander Naim Barbosa, professor of medicine at São Paulo State University.

Coronavirus is believed to have first arrived in Brazil through wealthy tourists returning home from European countries. The Health Ministry has announced that the virus has now spread to 82 percent of the country's municipalities.