This archive report was first published on 10 June 2020.
On June 9, 2020, Brazil's government resumed publishing the country's total death toll from the coronavirus pandemic, following a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes that the government must return to the old format.
The health ministry indicated that the death toll had risen by 1,272, to a total of 38,406 people killed by the virus – the third-highest toll in the world, after the United States and Britain.
Experts say under-testing means the real numbers in the country of 212 million people are probably much higher.
President Jair Bolsonaro's government had stopped publishing the total number of deaths from the new coronavirus on June 5, saying it was adopting a new methodology and would only report the number of deaths recorded in the past 24 hours in its daily bulletin.
However, this move drew accusations of foul play from a long list of high-profile critics, including Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
As the health crisis deepens, Bolsonaro has railed against the consensus response to the pandemic, saying stay-at-home measures are needlessly wrecking the economy.
He has also threatened to quit the World Health Organisation over "ideological bias" – criticism echoed by his foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo.
