BRASILIA, Jan 23 (NNN-Xinhua) — Brazil registered 157,393 new COVID-19 infections and 238 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the total caseload to 23,909,175 and the national death toll to 622,801, the National Council of Health Secretariats reported.
It is the fourth day in a row that Brazil reported more than 150,000 cases in one day.
Brazil has the world’s second-highest COVID-19 death toll, surpassed only by the United States, and the world’s third-largest outbreak, with a caseload behind the United States and India.
Despite being one of the global epicenters of the pandemic last year, the mass vaccination program in Brazil considerably reduced the number of infections and deaths, although the arrival of the Omicron variant has caused a recent increase in cases and deaths.
As of Friday, 162.7 million people in Brazil, or 75.76 percent of the population, had received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 148.3 million have been fully vaccinated, while 38.9 million had received a booster. — NNN-XINHUA
