Brazil

The Brazilian government will pay the Serum Institute in India more than twice as much as European Union have earmarked for AstraZeneca vaccines. In a statement at the beginning of January, Fiocruz (Oswaldo Cruz Foundation) confirmed the negotiation and indicated that "the institute will offer the ready vaccines to the market for US$5.25 each".

In recent weeks, an alleged error by the Belgian Minister for the Budget has allowed the prices of different doses of vaccines to be revealed to the European public, with a value of US$2.16 for AstraZeneca doses.

Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, announced that the 2020 Carnaval would not be held in July on Thursday, as it seems the immunisation campaign against Covid-19 will be delayed in the city.

"This celebration requires a great deal of preparation on the part of public bodies and of samba associations and institutions. Something impossible to do at that moment. Thus, I would like to inform you that we will not have Carnaval in the middle of the year in 2021", said Paes.

When it deliberated on the postponement to July, the Independent League of Samba Schools (Liesa) made the parades conditional on the immunisation campaign against Covid-19.

Venezuela had announced on January 14 that in light of the humanitarian crisis provoked by a drastic increase in Covid-19 cases in Amazonas, it would send 130,000 litres of oxygen to support the struggling public health system. In addition to the oxygen tanks, the Venezuelan government also formed a brigade with 107 Brazilian and Venezuelan doctors, graduates of the Salvador Allende Latin American School of Medicine in Caracas, to help combat the pandemic in the State.

Brazil has been one of the worst impacted countries during the pandemic, which progressive movements have largely attributed to the mismanagement of the public health crisis by the federal government under far-right Jair Bolsonaro.

Jen Psaki, President-elect Joe Biden’s press secretary, dismissed Donald Trump's order to lift the ban on travellers from Europe and Brazil that has been in place since March 2020, instead announced plans to "strengthen public health measures around international travel."

"With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel," Psaki tweeted. "On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19."

Minutes after the first vaccine being approved for use in Brazil, the Coronavac Vaccine by the Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac, the first person that has been vaccinated is a black woman, 54 years old, working in Sao Paulo's Emilio Ribas hospital, as ICU nurse.

A spokesman for the Indian Foreign Ministry told the Hindustan Times that it was "too early" to send the batches of the vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute in partnership with Oxford University and pharmacist AstraZeneca.

On 5 January, Brazil's Foreign Ministry confirmed the purchase of Oxford vaccine doses produced in India, despite the Indian government's announcement that the vaccine's export was banned. The statement also mentioned plans to distribute the vaccines to Brazilian states within a few days of authorization from the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and highlighted the successful acquisition of the doses with an example of the "excellent relations" between the two countries.

Dozens of Covid-19 patients in Manaus, the Amazon rainforest's biggest city, will be flown out of state as the local health system collapses, authorities announced Thursday as dwindling stocks of oxygen tanks meant some people were starting to die breathless at home.

"Due to the strong impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the consumption of oxygen in the city increased exponentially over the last few days in comparison with a volume that was already extremely high," White Martins said in an emailed statement to Associate Press.

Brazilian influencers are running a crowdfunding campaign to delivery oxygen tanks to the city.

The UK has banned people who are from or have travelled through Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela in the last 10 days. The ban will come into force from Friday and is due to a new variant identified in Brazil. British, Irish and foreign nations may enter the country but must isolate for 10 days.

Santos will face Palmeiras, who overcame River Plate on Tuesday in the other semifinal, in the decider of Copa Libertadores on January 30 at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro.

After drawing the first leg 0-0 in Buenos Aires last week, Santos were vastly superior to their sluggish opponents, hitting the post inside the first minute and then taking the lead after a quarter of an hour.

The consortium of Brazilian media companies, compiling data from state health authorities, announced Wednesday the country had 1,283 new deaths and 61,966 positive diagnoses for the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of infected to 8,257,459 since the beginning of the pandemic.

In a thrilling match in São Paulo, the game hinged on a series of contentious decisions that went against the visitors after consultations with the Video Assistant Referee (VAR). River won the game 2-0 but it was not enough to revert the 3-0 Palmeiras' victory in Buenos Aires.

Palmeiras will play either Boca Juniors or Santos in the final of the Libertadores, South America's equivalent of UEFA's Champions League, later this month.

The carmaker justifies the decision to no longer manufacture cars in Brazil as part of the plan to focus on profitable products and obtain a corporate EBIT margin of 8% to generate "sustainable cash flow". These efforts have improved results over the past four quarters. Still, the continued unfavourable economic environment and the additional pressure caused by the pandemic have made it clear that much more is needed to create a sustainable and profitable future," said Lyle Watters, president of Ford South America.

After having had a fever and pain in the body and head, the Brazilian Vice-President Hamilton Mourão has tested positive for Covid-19, his office confirmed on Sunday.

Mourão will "remain in isolation at the official residence of Jaburu."

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases has surpassed 80 million infections worldwide on Saturday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. At least 1,753,313 people have died from the novel coronavirus globally. The highest infections have been recorded in the United States, India, Brazil and Russia.

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivella, was arrested this morning in a joint operation by the MP-RJ (Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor's Office) and the Civil Police.

The action that led to Crivella's arrest is an unfolding of Operation Hades, launched in March, which investigates a supposed bribe payment scheme for the release of contracts from Rio's City Hall, called the "HQ of the Bribe".

Crivella gave a quick statement to journalists. "I was the mayor who most fought corruption in Rio de Janeiro's City Hall," he said, adding that he now expects "justice."

Brazil's Ministry of Health has announced its national Covid-19 vaccination rollout plan on Wednesday. The country has negotiated a 300 million doses deal with "Fiocruz / AstraZeneca (100.4 million doses) and the COVAX Facility (42.9 million doses)" and will start vaccinating its people in February. Health and educational workers, the indigenous population, elderly people over 75 years old, those with pre-existing health conditions, security forces and transport officials will receive the vaccine first.

The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that the country is facing the end of the pandemic. The statement was made at a time when 22 of the 27 states face a rise in Covid-19 deaths.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 179,032 people have died due to Covid-19 in Brazil, and the country does not yet have a detailed vaccination plan against the disease.

The Brazilian Health Ministry announced Sunday its daily Covid-19 report with 26,363 new cases and 313 deaths.

Since the beginning of the outbreak, Brazil accounted for 6,603,540 infected with a death toll of 176,941.

The São Paulo state Governor, João Dória, announced Thursday the immunizations against Covid-19 would start in January using the Coronavac vaccine, from the Chinese company Sinovac. A day before of São Paulo's announcement the Brazilian Ministry of Health announced a country-wide immunization would start only in March.

"In São Paulo, responsibly, following the law, next January, following the protocol with Anvisa and obeying the principles of life protection, we will start immunizing Brazilians in São Paulo. We will not wait until March" said Doria.

A new security breach in the Ministry of Health's covid-19 notification system left personal data of over 200 million Brazilians exposed on the internet for at least six months. It was not only patients diagnosed with Covid-19 who had their privacy violated, as occurred in another exposure case reported last week. This time, the personal information of any Brazilian registered with SUS or beneficiary of a health plan was open for consultation.

"Each time you stop and go through the Ministry of Health's information security and data management policy, you find a more serious vulnerability. At the time of our complaint, we asked for an audit and received no response. Clearly, they have not taken and are not yet taking the treatment of data from millions of Brazilians seriously," says Fernanda Campagnucci, executive director of the NGO Open Knowledge Brasil (OKBR).