Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil registered a record 2,286 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on March 10, as a worrying surge pushed the figure past 2,000 for the first time.

Almost no place has been spared — and no one.

The virus that first emerged a year ago in Wuhan, China, swept across the world in 2020, leaving havoc in its wake. More than any event in memory, the pandemic has been a global event. On every continent, households have felt its devastation — joblessness and lockdowns, infirmity and death. And an abiding, relentless fear.

President Jair Bolsonaro's right-wing government has been criticized by state governors and public health experts for its unwillingness to tackle the pandemic, and for inventing a hastily drawn up and flawed plan.

Britain on Dec. 2 became the first western country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine for general use, while Japan and Italy pledged free inoculations for all even as the global death toll rose towards 1.5 million.

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has surged to its highest level since 2008, the country's space agency (Inpe) reports.

 A total of 11,088 sq km (4,281 sq miles) of rainforest were destroyed from August 2019 to July 2020. This is a 9.5% increase from the previous year.

The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged again over the past year, hitting a 12-year high, according to official figures released Monday that drew a chorus of condemnation of President Jair Bolsonaro's government.

A worrying social crisis is brewing in Latin America where the coronavirus pandemic is spiralling, experts are warning, as fears of a second wave in the United States sent shivers through global markets.

Brazil on June 9 restored detailed COVID-19 data to its official national website following controversy over the removal of cumulative totals and a ruling by a Supreme Court justice that the full set of information be reinstated.

Surging fatalities in Latin America helped push the global coronavirus death toll above 400,000 on June 7, even as Europe emerged from its virus lockdown with infections increasingly under control there.

Brazil and Mexico reported record daily coronavirus death tolls as governments in Latin America battled to fortify defenses against the accelerating pandemic with fresh lockdown orders and curfews.