BRAZIL
Not Adding Up
Brazil’s government stopped publishing data on total coronavirus deaths and infections over the weekend, a move criticized for obscuring the true death toll of the disease in South America’s largest nation, the Associated Press reported.
The move comes after months of criticism from scientists and health experts, who say that Brazil’s statistics were already skewed and make it impossible to know the true impact of the virus on the country.
The nation of 210 million had more than 670,000 cases and 35,930 deaths as of Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
On Friday, Brazil’s federal health ministry took down the website that showed daily, weekly and monthly figures on infections and deaths in Brazilian states.
The site returned Saturday but only showed the numbers for the previous 24 hours – while removing the total numbers of infections for states and the nation.
President Jair Bolsonaro said the numbers are “not representative” of Brazil’s situation.
A council of state health secretaries condemned the move and said they will fight the changes by Bolsonaro’s administration, which has tried to stop attempts to impose lockdowns and social distancing rules.
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