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As of Monday morning, Brazil had reported 3,035,582 COVID-19 cases and 101,136 deaths.
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro Sunday blamed lockdown as the likely cause of the deaths of thousands of people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Brazil: Official Mourning After Alarming COVID-19 Death Toll
His accusations came after he quoted a British newspaper holding that about 16.000 people died in the U.K. because they did not have access to the health system.
The British outlet concluded that the lockdown killed two out of three COVID-19 patients in the UK. In Brazil, even without official data, the numbers "would not be very different," Bolsonaro said.
Bolsonaro has always been against lockdown as a strategy to fight the pandemic, for he thinks that it can be worse than COVID-19 itself.
Translating the Brazil’s #COVID19 to foreign colleagues: a negaticionist government has delivered 100,000 deaths & more than 3 million infected. Despise for the victims, families & prevention. @GPPAC @StanleyConnect @ResumendelSur @ResistBrasilUS @WOLA_org @WHO @ICCT_TheHague pic.twitter.com/xT9f3hQzXO
— Thiago Rodrigues (@thethiagor) August 9, 2020
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the far-right president has called governors and mayors to ease lockdown measures to avoid an economic collapse.
On Saturday, the Federal Congress and Federal Supreme Court decreed three days of national mourning for the victims of the pandemic.
As of Monday morning, Brazil had reported 3,035,582 COVID-19 cases and 101,136 deaths.
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