Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro greeted hundreds of supporters —and joined some in a series of push-ups— who gathered before the presidential offices Sunday to back his open-the-economy drive even as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the country.

MANAUS, Brazil (AP) — In the remote Amazon community of Betania, Tikuna tribe members suspect the coronavirus arrived this month after some returned from a two-hour boat trip down the Solimoes River to pick up their government benefit payments.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s health minister resigned Friday after less than a month on the job in a sign of continuing upheaval over how the nation should battle the coronavirus pandemic, quitting a day after President Jair Bolsonaro stepped up pressure on him to expand use of the antimalarial drug chloroquine in treating patients.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Faced with overwhelmed hospitals and surging coronavirus deaths, Brazilian state and city governments are lurching forward with mandatory lockdowns against the will of President Jair Bolsonaro, who says job losses are more damaging than COVID-19.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — From the Amazon city of Manaus to the seemingly endless urban sprawl of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, freshly dug graves have been filling up quickly for weeks with the bodies of Brazilians killed by COVID-19.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — The capital of tropical Maranhão state ground largely to a halt Tuesday, becoming the first major Brazilian city to enter a lockdown in the hopes of preventing the coronavirus pandemic from overwhelming the health care system of one of the country’s poorest states.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian footballers are calling on health authorities to give them better assurances before they agree to start playing again amid the coronavirus pandemic.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says he twice tested negative for the coronavirus but many, including a federal judge, are demanding he share the actual results. Still, the leader has refused.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Rioting inmates at a prison in the northern state of Amazonas held seven guards hostage for several hours Saturday, protesting against the suspension of all visits in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, authorities said.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — In Brazil’s bustling Amazon city of Manaus, so many people have died within days in the coronavirus pandemic that coffins had to be stacked on top of each other in long, hastily dug trenches in a city cemetery. Some despairing relatives reluctantly chose cremation for loved ones to avoid burying them in those common graves.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro yielded Wednesday to growing criticism around his nomination of a new federal police chief seen as too close to his family, revoking the controversial appointment just hours after it was temporarily suspended by the Supreme Court.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — As Brazil careens toward a full-blown public health emergency and economic meltdown, President Jair Bolsonaro has managed to add a third ingredient to the toxic mix: political crisis. Even if it doesn’t speed his downfall, it will render Brazilians more vulnerable to the pandemic.

The current situation of a global pandemic invites reconsideration of similar situations that happened in the past, such as the great plague in Europe in the 14th century, or the successive and devastating influenza and measles epidemics (amongst others) which decimated indigenous populations in the post-Columbian era in Latin America, and especially in the Amazon.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil is emerging as potentially the next big hot spot for the coronavirus amid President Jair Bolsonaro’s insistence that it is just a “little flu” and that there is no need for the sharp restrictions that have slowed the infection’s spread in Europe and the U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.

Around 620 indigenous people live in this UNESCO-recognized biome, spread out in six different villages in a five-acre territory. They continue to struggle to maintain their language, traditions and rituals.

SÃO PAULO (AP) — Four days after firing his health minister amid the coronavirus pandemic, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Monday he wants social isolation policies to end nationwide this week despite commitments by many states to maintain such policies.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — After more than a week suffering a cough and fever —potential signs of COVID-19— Maria do Espírito Santo went to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil’s biggest city in the Amazon rain forest. There were no beds available, just a plastic chair, so her family took her home.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro came out in public to support a small protest Sunday that defended military intervention, prompting strong criticism across the political spectrum while also infringing his own ministry’s recommendation to maintain social distancing.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made it clear on Friday that he wants his new health minister to help protect the country’s economy as the government seeks to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.

IO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro fired his health minister on Thursday after a series of disagreements over government efforts to contain the new coronavirus. “I just heard from the President Jair Bolsonaro the news of my dismissal from the health ministry,” Luiz Henrique Mandetta posted on his verified Twitter profile, adding that he wished success to his replacement, who is yet to be named officially. He confirmed the announcement in a press conference later.