2019 November •
27 November: Two raw
sewage samples collected independently on 27 November 2019 in
Santa Catarina, Brazil, will later detect SARS-CoV-2 (100,000 copies per litre), 66 days in advance of the first COVID-19 confirmed case in the Americas. Subsequent samplings are positive on 11 December 2019 and 20 February 2020. These samples can show that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating in Brazil at least as early as late November 2019. However, this is highly contested by the scientific consensus which shows that the virus emerged in early December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Thus, it is highly unlikely that it was circulating in Brazil before early 2020. Researchers from the Institute of Tropical Medicine and international colleagues showed in the scientific journal Science that the first sustained transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Brazil occurred between late February and early March 2020.
2020 On 28 January 2020, Brazil's
Ministry of Health announced that a suspected case of COVID-19 was being investigated in
Belo Horizonte, involving a student who had recently returned from
Wuhan, China. Ministry also announced that they was investigating two other suspected cases in
Porto Alegre and
Curitiba. On 3 February, it was announced that the Brazilian government would assist in helping citizens in Wuhan return to the country; on 5 February, two planes were sent to Wuhan to
repatriate 34 citizens. The citizens and all other crew were to be quarantined and monitored for 18 days at a
Brazilian Air Force base in
Anápolis. They were released ahead of schedule on 23 February, after repeatedly testing negative. On 25 February, the first confirmed COVID-19 case in Brazil (and the first in South America) was announced by the Health Department of São Paulo – a 61-year-old man who had returned from
Lombardy,
Italy. A second case was confirmed soon after in another person who had recently returned from Italy. On 28 February, scientists of the
University of São Paulo's Tropical Medicine Institute and the Adolfo Lutz Institute reported that they had
sequenced the
genomes of these two cases, which had been separately introduced from
Northern Italy to Brazil on two occasions. In an address on 6 March, President
Jair Bolsonaro advised residents to "strictly follow the experts' recommendations as the best protective measure", but that "there is no reason to panic". On 12 March, it was reported that Bolsonaro's press secretary
Fábio Wajngarten had tested positive for COVID-19, prompting increased monitoring of Bolsonaro (who tested negative the next day) and his
cabinet. Wajngarten had also interacted with U.S. President
Donald Trump and Vice President
Mike Pence during Bolsonaro's visit to Miami,
Florida on 7 March. The number of cases within the cabinet began to increase, including Minister of Mines and Energy
Bento Albuquerque, and President of the Federal Senate
Davi Alcolumbre; by 20 March, Brazil had the second-largest number of cases among members of a federal cabinet, overtaking Iran and behind only France. On 13 March, the cruise ship
Silver Shadow arrived from
the Bahamas and docked in
Recife, Pernambuco, bearing 318 passengers and 291 crew members, including one suspected case of COVID-19. The ship was isolated by health authorities. On 17 March, Brazil recorded its first death. At this time, there were 291 confirmed cases in the country. By 20 March, state health departments reported almost 1,000 confirmed cases across 23 of 26 states and also in the Federal District. By 21 March, all Brazilian states had reported at least one confirmed case of COVID-19, with the most recent being Roraima. In the month since Brazil's first confirmed case, Brazil had 2,915 confirmed cases and 77 deaths. On 28 March, the Ministry of Health reported that Brazil had 3,904 confirmed cases and 114 deaths, suggesting a mortality rate of 2.9%. Approximately 90% of deaths were people over 60 years of age, and most were men. In 84% of deaths, patients had at least one risk factor, most commonly heart disease, followed by diabetes and
pneumopathy.
April . •
6 April: President Jair Bolsonaro threatened to fire the Minister of Health,
Luiz Henrique Mandetta, after they clashed. Following criticism, Bolsonaro temporarily backed down. •
9 April: The federal government sent out its first financial assistance (
Portuguese: Auxílio emergencial) to the public. Over 2.5 million people received R$600 ($116). •
10 April: Brazil confirmed the thousandth coronavirus-related death, as the number of confirmed cases neared 20,000. : The virus had reached remote locations; a
Yanomami teen died of it in
Roraima. •
14 April: The Ministry of Health reported a total of 25,262 confirmed cases and 1,532 confirmed deaths. Over 14,000 people were declared recovered, although they were not confirmed virus-free, only discharged from a hospital or asymptomatic. •
16 April: President Bolsonaro fired the Minister of Health,
Luiz Henrique Mandetta, over disagreements about
social distancing guidelines. He said he would appoint a health minister who favored reopening businesses "as quickly as possible". Shortly afterwards,
Nelson Teich was appointed to replace him. •
20 April: Several cities started to ease social isolation guidelines in favor of
contact tracing. Some retail stores were allowed to open as long as customers wore masks, the number of in-person customers was reduced, and customer personal information was tracked. •
24 April: Brazil confirmed more than fifty thousand cases. •
30 April: Brazil overtook China's official number of confirmed cases, surpassing 87,000
May •
3 May: Brazil confirmed more than a hundred thousand cases; the number of cases had doubled in less than 10 days. •
7 May: Several cities in the northern states of Amazonas and Pará begun issuing lockdown measures in order to curb the spread of the virus. Other cities in other states consider doing the same. •
9 May: Brazil confirmed more than ten thousand deaths; the number of deaths had doubled in less than two weeks. •
11 May: Brazilian care centers initiate use of the
hug tunnel to allow elderly people to safely be in proximity to loved ones. •
14 May: Brazil confirmed more than 200,000 cases; the number of cases had doubled in 11 days. : The state of Ceará became the state with the second most confirmed cases, overtaking Rio de Janeiro. •
15 May: Brazil's minister of Health,
Nelson Teich, resigned less than a month after being nominated. He cited reasons for this action similar to those of his predecessor: his clashes with the president over the use of
hydroxychloroquine, the social distancing guidelines, and being overruled on rules he was supposed to define. General
Eduardo Pazuello assumed the role of Interim Minister of Health, until an official replacement could be found. •
26 May: Reuters reported that according to four officials, the Ministry of Health's initial 13 March response to the pandemic was halted and scaled back by President Bolsonaro less than a day later, with power transferred on 16 March from the ministry to the office of General
Walter Souza Braga Netto, the
Cabinet Chief of Staff. •
31 May: Brazil confirmed more than five hundred thousand cases; the number of cases had doubled in less than 14 days.
June •
1 June: Brazil confirmed more than 30,000 deaths. •
5 June: The Brazilian government shut down its official website with COVID-19 daily reports, and stated it will no longer report the total number of deaths or active cases. •
6 June: Carlos Wizard, the new Secretary of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Health, claimed that states are inflating the number of COVID-19 deaths in Brazil as a budget diversion scheme, and called for a recount of the total number of deaths. •
7 June: The government decided that it will no longer publish cumulative COVID-19 numbers, claiming that former numbers may have been misleading. The health ministry plans to publish only the numbers of new cases and deaths in the past 24 hours. In response, large media groups in the country established a council to keep recording and publishing data according to the original method, amid claims that the government's initiative could be a maneuver to mislead the population instead. •
9 June: A court order forced the Brazilian government to continue publishing cumulative case and death counts.
July •
6 July: President Bolsonaro has a fever and was tested for coronavirus. •
7 July: President Bolsonaro tests positive for COVID-19. •
25 July: President Bolsonaro tests negative for COVID-19. •
30 July: First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro tests positive for COVID-19.
August •
3 August: General Braga Netto, the chief of staff to President Bolsonaro, tests positive for COVID-19. •
8 August: Brazil reaches three million infections and 100,000 deaths. •
25 August: Senator
Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of President Bolsonaro, tests positive for COVID-19.
September •
3 September: Brazil reaches four million infections and about 125,000 deaths. •
9 September: A two month old child dies of COVID-19 in
São Bernardo do Campo, possible the youngest death in the
ABC Region.
October •
6 October: Brazil reaches five million infections.
November •
20 November: Brazil reaches six million infections.
December •
25 December: Brazil reaches 190,000 deaths. •
31 December: Variant
B117 is identified in
São Paulo.
2021 January •
7 January: Brazil reaches 200,000 deaths. •
11 January: The
Ministry of Health pressures the administration of the city of
Manaus to adopt
chloroquine and
ivermectin as "premature treatment" drugs, stating that not using them would be "inadmissible". (The use of ivermectin as a supposed "miracle" drug for COVID-19 was already widespread despite there being no good scientific evidence supporting such usage.) •
12 January: Researchers from the Brazil-UK CADDE Project announce the discovery of a variant of strain in Manaus, which was called P.1. According to Felipe Naveca, a scientist at the
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, there is no doubt that the variant appeared in the Amazon, and may be more contagious. In the view of the researcher
Ester Sabino, from Institute of Tropical Medicine, the resurgence of cases in Manaus was associated with the novel P.1 SARS-CoV-2 variant, which was later labeled as Gamma variant of concern by World Health Organization. •
14 January: Demand for oxygen peaked in the city of
Manaus, in
Amazonas, and the city could not supply the demand. Some patients died of asphyxiation, and some were transferred to other states. The city implemented an overnight curfew. Venezuelan Foreign Minister
Jorge Arreaza, on instructions from
Nicolás Maduro, offered his country's oxygen stock to the government of Amazonas. It was later revealed that Brazilian officials had been warned of the oxygen supply crisis six days earlier. •
17 January: Anvisa has authorized the emergency use of
CoronaVac and the
AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine. Monica Calazans, 54 years old and part of the risk group, a nurse in the fight against COVID, became the first Brazilian to take CoronaVac officially outside the tests. •
21 January: Research from the
University of São Paulo and the revealed the "existence of an institutional strategy to spread the virus, promoted by the Brazilian Government under the leadership of the Presidency of the Republic". in Brazil in January 2021 •
27 January: Brazil reaches 220,000 deaths.
The Lancet publishes an article concerning the possible causes of an "unexpected" increase in January hospital admissions in Manaus, including the emergence of the
P.1. variant. (Hospitalizations in Manaus, where an estimated 76% of the population had been infected by October 2020, remained at low levels for seven months from May to November.) •
28 January: The
Lowy Institute, an independent think tank in Australia, describes Brazil's response to the pandemic the worst in the world.
February •
1 February: Since vaccination started on 17 January, 2,220,216 people have been vaccinated. This represents 1.05% of the national population, and 25.21% of the doses received by the states. •
9 February: After repeatedly stating he did not approve of, and that his administration would not purchase Chinese company
Sinovac's vaccine, Bolsonaro backpedals and states that he was "never against the vaccine". Bolsonaro also stated he did not intend to take the vaccine, •
16 February: Brazil reaches 240,000 deaths.Since vaccination started on 17 January, 5,505,049 people have been vaccinated – of which 308,791 have also received the second dose. This represents 2.6% of the national population. •
17 February: Serrana, São Paulo participates in a study wherein 100% of its adult population is vaccinated with
CoronaVac while other communities complain of shortages. Prior to the mass vaccination, 5% of Serrana's population had been infected, one of the highest rates in Brazil. Only two million doses of vaccines have arrived in the country so far. •
25 February: On the day Brazil reached a record high 1,582 deaths by COVID-19 in 24 hours, during his weekly livestream, Bolsonaro questioned the efficacy of
mask usage and
lockdowns, citing an unspecified German study to justify his doubts on the first. The study that seems to have been referenced by Bolsonaro has been debunked multiple times, and is deemed non-scientific.
March •
3 March: For the second consecutive day, Brazil breaks its record of daily COVID-19 deaths, with a total of 1,910 over the span of 24 hours. During a conversation with his supporters, Bolsonaro stated that "if it's up to [him], Brazil will never have a lockdown". •
13 March: The government official reported an-always high new infection toll with +76,178 cases in 1 day. There is now a total of 11,439,558 cases, and 277,102 deaths. 9,669,967 people have taken the first shot of COVID-19 vaccine. •
14 March: The ICUs of 14 Brazilian states were over 90% occupied, and those of another 7 Brazilian states and the Federal District were 80–90% occupied. •
15 March: Brasil de Fato reported the United States
Department of Health and Human Services attempted to pressure the country not buy
Sputnik V vaccine to diminish Russia's influence in the region. This did not stop a consortium of Brazilian governors in some states from signing a 37 million dose purchase agreement. •
17 March: Brazilian Health Officials deem the Hospital crisis "the worst in Brazil's history". •
19 March: The ICUs of 16 Brazilian states were over 90% occupied, "meaning those health systems have collapsed or are at imminent risk of doing so," according to CNN. •
25 March: Over 100,000 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in a single day, the highest rate of diagnosis since the pandemic began. •
31 March: There is now a total of 12,753,258 cases and 321,886 deaths.
April •
1 April: Prostitutes in Minas Gerais
go on strike to pressure the Ministry of Health into classifying sex workers as a priority group for COVID-19 vaccines. The effort ultimately proves unsuccessful. •
7 April: For the first time, Brazil has recorded over 4,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in 24 hours. •
8 April: Luís Roberto Barroso (
STF), determined the
Senate begin a parliamentary investigation commission (
CPI) to "investigate possible omissions by the federal government in dealing with the Covid pandemic". •
9 April: President
Jair Bolsonaro authorizes government campaign for mask wearing and social distancing. •
13 April: A commission created by the
Order of Attorneys of Brazil concluded that Jair Bolsonaro committed
high crimes and misdemeanors, which would constitute grounds for
impeachment. They concluded that "Bolsonaro acted deliberately to propagate the Covid-19 virus, and that he should be held accountable for the deaths due to the pandemic". Additionally, they argue that Bolsonaro committed crimes against humanity for attempting to prevent efforts against the pandemic. The Brazilian Senate opened the
CPI da COVID that will also "investigate the use of federal funds passed to the federal entities to combat the new coronavirus." On this same day, in
Itirapina (São Paulo), 46 people were mistakenly vaccinated with Coronavac, as opposed to the influenza vaccine. •
14 April: Five children, between 7 months and 4 years old, were mistakenly vaccinated with the
CoronaVac in
Diadema instead of the Influenza vaccine. The children will be followed for 42 days, but there have been few studies yet on how this vaccine performs in children.
May •
5 May: Jair Bolsonaro perpetuated an extremely controversial
conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 virus could have been made intentionally in a lab as a form of biological warfare. He then indirectly pointed to China as the country whose GDP had grown the most during the pandemic.
October •
31 October: The government ends the financial assistance program. Cash transfer programs continue with
Auxílio Brasil, replacing
Bolsa Família, announced in October.
November •
30 November:: The
Omicron variant was detected in São Paulo, the first in South America.
December •
10 December: The Ministry of Health and many of the public healthcare systems are taken down by a
ransomware attack. •
16 December: Anvisa has authorized the use of
Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine for children from 5 to 11 years old.
2022 January •
14 January: The state of São Paulo kicks off the vaccination on children. Davi Seremramiwe, an 8-year-old child
Xavante, was the first to receive a dose of the pediatric Pfizer vaccine. •
20 January: Anvisa has authorized the emergency use of
CoronaVac vaccine for children and teenagers from 6 to 17 years old.
November •
22 November: Anvisa has authorized the emergency use of
Pfizer–BioNTech bivalent vaccine for adults and teenagers from 12 years old.
2023 February •
27 February: The Brazilian government kicks off a national COVID vaccination campaign and application of bivalent vaccines, at first, on prioritary groups (adults from 60 years old, low immunity people, health workers).
March •
28 March: There is now a total of 700,000 deaths.
July •
24 July: Anvisa gives full authorization for the
Pfizer–BioNTech bivalent vaccine.
August •
18 August: The Ministry of Health confirms the first case of
EG.5 subvariant in Brazil. == Vaccination ==