Brazil approaches half a million COVID deaths

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil has had 85,748 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 2,723 deaths from COVID-19, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

The South American country has now registered 17,122,877 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 479,515, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the United States and India and its second-deadliest.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Leslie Adler)