Latin America: One Million Cases and 50,000 Deaths

Latin America's coronavirus death toll topped 50,000 on Saturday. If that’s not bad enough, yesterday, its confirmed cases reached 1,011,726, which is 16.2% of the global tally. 

When we take a look at the Top 7 worst-affected countries, they combine to show a 94.1% share of Latin America's total and 15.2% of the world's total.

There’s no doubt about it – it is the new epicenter (as my May 24, 2020 post had trumpeted). Four countries continue to yield high daily infection numbers: Brazil, Peru, Chile and Mexico. 

I must single out Brazil in particular because the country is supposed to have already started using chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine widely to treat Covid-19 – therefore, we should expect them to be able to rein in the disease, shouldn't we?

After all, these drugs had been proudly endorsed by two presidents, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump, no less!

Yet, the country collected over half a million cases yesterday – 514,849 to be precise and it alone contributed 50.9% of Latin America’s total.

Russia recorded 9,268 cases which raised the national tally to 405,843 and still comfortably holding onto its No. 3 position.

Meanwhile, Iran's infections had breached the 150,000 mark and it's sitting in position No. 12.

A day earlier, Oman and Kazakhstan reported more than 10,000 cases and Nigeria followed suit on Sunday.