WHO says COVID-19 cases in Brazil no longer rising exponentially

Coronavirus infections in Brazil no longer appear to be rising exponentially but have reached a plateau, creating an opportunity to get the outbreak there under control, WHO emergencies programme head Mike Ryan said on Friday.

Ryan told a news briefing that the "R" number - the number of people each infected person goes on to infect - now appeared to be between 0.5 and 1.5 across states in Brazil, and the number of new cases was plateauing at 40,000-45,000 per day.

"The virus is not doubling itself in the community as it was before, so the rise is not exponential," he said. But there was "absolutely no guarantee that it will go down by itself".