NewsTracker Answers for week of Mar. 15, 2021

Q: Hospitals in Brazil’s main cities are reaching capacity, health officials warned, as the country recorded the world’s highest COVID-19 death toll last week. Where is Brazil?

Circle the area on this map

Q: In Brazil’s wealthiest state, at least 30 patients died this month while waiting for beds in intensive care units. That state has the same name as nation’s largest city ..

A. Brasilia

B. Manus

C. Rio de Janerio

D. Sao Paulo

D. With more than 21 million people, Sao Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil.

Q: President Jair Bolsonaro told Brazilians to “stop whining” last week as the nation reported more than 278,000 deaths. What is Brazil’s capital?

A. Brasilia

B. Manus

C. Rio de Janerio

D. Sao Paulo

A. Brasilia was specially built to replace the nation’s second-largest city, Rio de Janerio, as the nation’s capital in 1960. Bolsonaro has consistently resisted and condemned restrictions to control the pandemic which has left Brazil with the second highest death toll behind the United States.

Q: Brazil is being ravaged by a mutant strain of the coronavirus which is up to twice as transmittable as the original version of the virus. It is believed to have originated in what city in the Amazon River basin?

A. Brasilia

B. Manus

C. Rio de Janerio

D. Sao Paulo

B. Manus in the Amazonas state has been very hard hit by COVID-19 and even ran out of oxygen to give patients. Brasilia, Rio de Janerio and Sao Paulo are all outside of the Amazon basin which drains more than 35 percent of South America and discharges more water into the ocean than any other river system.

Q: COVID-19 has killed more than 2.6 million people worldwide – more than 534,000 of them in the United States. What nation ranks third in total reported deaths after Brazil?

A. India

B. Italy

C. Mexico

D. United Kingdom

C. Mexico has reported more than 194,000 deaths. That is ahead of the other nations reporting more than 100,000 deaths - India, the United Kingdom and Italy.