Brazil reports over 160,000 new COVID-19 cases for 3rd straight day

Brazil reported 166,539 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the third consecutive day on which the country registered more than 160,000 cases, the National Council of Health Secretaries said Friday.

The new cases have brought the nationwide tally to 23,751,782, it said.

Meanwhile, the country registered 358 deaths in the past day, taking the national death toll to 622,563, it said, adding the released figures did not include those from the state of Ceara.

Brazil registered a mortality rate of 296.3 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants on Friday, while the incidence rate reached 11,302.5 per 100,000 inhabitants, it said.

The spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant has led to an increase in cases and deaths in Brazil lately, although mass vaccination in the South American country had considerably reduced the figures in recent months.

According to official data, 162.6 million people in Brazil, or 75.7 percent of the country's population, have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 148.1 million of them have been fully vaccinated.