Brazil approaches 20 million COVID cases, deaths decrease

BRASILIA: Brazil has had 20,503 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 464 deaths from COVID-19, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The South American country has now registered 19,938,358 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 556,834, according to ministry data, in the world's third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest.

As vaccination advances in Brazil, the rolling 7-day average of COVID deaths has dropped to 932 fatalities in the past week, down from almost 3,000 a week at the peak of the pandemic in early April, according to a Reuters tally.