COVID-19 deaths surpass 610,000 in Brazil

Brazil on Wednesday registered 280 more deaths from COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, raising the national death toll to 610,036, said the Health Ministry, reported Xinhua.

Authorities also registered 12,273 new daily COVID-19 cases, bringing the total caseload to 21,909,298.

Brazil has seen an average of 257 deaths and 10,502 new cases per day in the last week.

The South American country currently has a rate of 290.3 deaths and 10,425.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the ministry.

The state of Sao Paulo, the most populated and hardest hit, has seen 152,538 deaths and 4,415,745 cases, followed by Rio de Janeiro with 68,607 deaths and 1,329,609 cases.

As of Tuesday, 156.3 million people (73.28 percent of the population) in Brazil received a first dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, and 121.7 million (57.08 percent) were fully vaccinated, according to local media.