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Brazil has become the second country to confirm more than one million coronavirus cases, the BBC reports.

The health authorities reported more than 54,000 covid-19 cases on Friday.

In addition, more than 1,200 deaths were reported for the fourth consecutive day, taking the tally to nearly 49,000.

World Health Organisation (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that the pandemic was entering a new and dangerous phase as governments are seeking to open up and restart their economies.

Latin America has seen spike in infections. Major outbreaks have been reported in Chile and Peru while Mexico became the seventh country to surpass 20,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday.

Only United States has more infections than Brazil. More than 2.2 million covid-19 cases have been confirmed in the US with the virus claiming 116,127 lives according to data compiled by John Hopkins University.

A total of 1, 032,913 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Brazil.

Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro has been heavily criticised on his response to the pandemic. He did not introduce a national lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.

Mr Bolsonaro has clashed with state governors and mayors who have locked down major cities as a way of minimising the spread of the deadly virus.

President Bolsonaro argues that the economic impact of the virus will be much bigger that the virus itself.

There is a concern that the healthcare system in Brazil will be unable to cope up with the rising number of cases in deprived neighbourhoods and remote areas.

Millions of jobs have already been lost in the South American country and analysts forecast that the economy will contract by between 6% and 8%.

The government has already introduced temporary payments to cushion those that have been badly affected by the pandemic. However, a large number of persons are expected to be thrown into poverty.

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