The Brazilian government on Saturday ended the publishing of official total death toll figures from the coronavirus, drawing outrage from the nation’s health experts. An official website from Brazil’s Health Ministry no longer shows cumulative death toll and case figures, only new cases and deaths within the past 24 hours.

The news comes as Brazil has become one of the world's hotspots for the coronavirus and as President Jair Bolsonaro faces fierce criticism for downplaying the pandemic.

“The authoritarian, insensitive, inhuman and unethical attempt to make those killed by Covid-19 invisible will not succeed. We and Brazilian society will not forget them, nor the tragedy that befalls the nation,” Alberto Beltrame, the president of the national council of state health secretaries said in a statement. Beltrame is also the Secretary of Health for the Brazilian state of Para.

“The trick will not exempt responsibility for the eventual genocide,” Rodrigo Maia, speaker of the lower house of Congress, said.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are 691,758 cases of the coronavirus in Brazil as of Monday at 11:15 a.m. ET, with a death toll of 36,455. Brazil has the second-highest number of cases in the world behind the United States.

Bolsonaro has said on Twitter that "the cumulative data... does not reflect the moment the country is in" and claimed additional steps are being taken to "improve the reporting of cases." Bolsonaro has frequently referred to the coronavirus as the “little flu.”

Bolsonaro has feuded with governors who have implemented shutdown orders. In mid-April, Bolsonaro fired Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta over disagreements on how to tackle the crisis. Mandetta was then replaced by health consultant Nelson Teich, but he resigned on May 15 after Bolsonaro continued to promote hydroxychloroquine, an unproven treatment for the virus.

The outbreak has disproportionately impacted Brazil’s indigenous population and low-income favela communities. On Sunday, thousands of Brazilians demonstrated on the streets against Bolsonaro, banging drums and setting off flares. Some citizens also say Bolsonaro does not care enough about Brazil’s black population.

"Bolsonaro doesn't care about Black lives," Bianca de Azus, a protestor in Rio de Janeiro told Al Jazeera. "Fifty-four percent of Brazilians are black and we are the ones being hardest hit by COVID-19 and poverty. That's why he does nothing."

RELATED STORIES
Coronavirus Twitter