Brazilian government accused of hiding coronavirus deaths 'by decree,' stops publishing running total

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been one of the world's most high-profile coronavirus skeptics since the pandemic began, often downplaying the gravity of the global health crisis. Now, his government appears to have taken that skepticism to a new level.

As of Saturday — when global coronavirus deaths passed 400,000 — Brazil has stopped publishing a running total of COVID-19 deaths and infections in what many see as an attempt to hide the virus' true toll in the country, The Associated Press reports. "We are becoming an international joke in terms of public health," said Domingo Alves, an associate professor of social medicine at the University of Sao Paulo. "Deaths cannot be hidden by decree."

The federal Health Ministry took down a website Friday that showed daily, weekly, and monthly coronavirus figures in Brazilian states. The site returned Saturday, minus the total numbers; it now shows only the data for the previous 24 hours, per AP. The last official count showed 615,000 infections and 34,000 deaths, the second and third highest marks in the world, respectively, and some experts believe the world's seventh most populous country is now the epicenter of the pandemic.

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While the expert consensus is that Brazil's deaths and infections have been undercounted, Bolsonaro's government has suggested states' tallies have been made to look worse. "The number we have today is fanciful or manipulated," said Carlos Wizard, a businessman expected to assume a high-level post in the Health Ministry.

A council of state health secretaries said it won't let Bolsonaro's "authoritarian, insensitive, inhumane, and unethical attempt" to make COVID-19 deaths "invisible" go forward without a fight. Read more at The Associated Press.