Brazil removes key COVID-19 data

A key government website in Brazil no longer shows total deaths and coronavirus cases, with only the daily numbers still available. The authorities have decided to revamp the page with President Jair Bolsonaro claiming that the overall data "does not reflect the moment the country is in."

Separately, a Bolsonaro ally suggested that some states have been sending false reports to the federal health ministry.

"The number we have today is fanciful or manipulated," businessman Carlos Wizard, expected to take a high-level position in the ministry, told a newspaper.

In turn, a council of state health secretaries slammed the "authoritarian, insensitive, inhumane, and unethical attempt to make the COVID-19 deaths invisible."

According to the tally kept by the US-based Johns Hopkins Institute, Brazil has seen nearly 673,000 coronavirus cases and 35,930 deaths as of Sunday morning. Only the US has reported more coronavirus cases. The figures also make Brazil third heaviest-hit country in the world on the total number of fatalities, behind the US and the UK.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed fears of the pandemic, describing the coronavirus as "little flu."

This week, the country also moved its daily coronavirus briefing to late in the evening. On Friday, Bolsonaro joked the move would annoy the reporters working for the country's most watched news program, Jornal Nacional, which would now be broadcast before the government releases its latest figures.