AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The bleak figures from Brazil underlined the grim toll the virus is taking on Latin America, the latest epicenter in the pandemic, even as Europe seeks to reemerge from lockdown, including with a massive new 600 billion euro ($674 billion) economic stimulus measure announced by the European Central Bank.
But on the medical side, the outlook remains blurry.
Even as researchers around the world race to develop and test vaccines, new - sometimes contradictory - information on the virus continues to emerge.
In the latest case, the medical journal The Lancet retracted a study that raised safety concerns regarding hydroxychloroquine, a drug touted by US President Donald Trump as a treatment for COVID-19, after the paper's authors said they were no longer confident in the underlying data provided by a Chicago-based healthcare analytics firm.
The paper had led the World Health Organization to suspend clinical trials of the drug, and its retraction added fuel to a politically charged debate over how to respond to the pandemic.
Brazil, Mexico hit records
Since emerging in China late last year, the virus has infected at least 6.6 million people, killed more than 390,000 and wreaked havoc on the global economy by forcing millions to stay inside their homes.
Brazil reported a new 24-hour record death toll, bringing the total number killed to more than 34,000.
Brazil has a lower record than both the United States, with more than 108,000 deaths, and Britain, with nearly 40,000.
Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has fiercely criticized coronavirus stay-at-home measures, even as the number of infections and deaths continues to soar, arguing that they are needlessly hurting the economy.
Brazil is the hardest-hit country in Latin America, though the toll is also rising sharply in Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Chile.
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