Brazil registers 5,126 new COVID-19 cases and 72 new deaths

Brazil has recorded 5,126 new COVID-19 cases and 72 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Sunday.

The South American country has now registered 22,017,276 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 612,659, according to ministry data, in the world's second-deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, trailing only the United States.

As vaccination advances, the rolling 14-day average of COVID-19 deaths has fallen to below 230 a day, the lowest since April 26 of last year, a month and a half after the first fatality in Brazil. That compares to a toll of almost 3,000 deaths a day at the peak of the pandemic in April of this year.