News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. June 15, 2020: The death toll in one Latin American nation reached 43,389 Sunday, the second highest globally at present.
Brazil registered 867,624 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, with 17,110 new cases since yesterday, the Health Ministry said on Sunday. The number of new COVID-19 deaths rose by 612 as the Latin and South American giant became the second country in the world behind the US to report the highest number of deaths worldwide.
The news comes as protesters rallied against the President Jair Bolsonaro government Sunday, bearing signs like “#Fora-Bolsonaro Impeachment Ja” to protest against racism and as the governor of the federal district in which Brazil’s capital Brasilia is located, closed the area around the presidential palace, ministries, Supreme Court and Congress to keep right-wing supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro from gathering there.
The state government issued the decree on Saturday night, after a small far-right group of the president’s supporters tried to invade Congress. The decree said the area was closed due to the need to avoid large gatherings amid the coronavirus epidemic, as well as the threat made by some protesters against Brazil’s democratic institutions.
Bolsonaro has increasingly clashed with the Supreme Court in recent weeks.
On Sunday, Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes tweeted that Bolsonaro may have committed a crime, when the president encouraged people to break into hospitals and film intensive care units to check whether or not beds were full, to prevent frauds in inflating the number of people with severe COVID-19.
“Its shameful, not to say ridiculous, that public officials stimulate conspiracy theories and put at risk public health,” Mendes tweeted.
