Brazil registers 1,074 more deaths from COVID-19

SAO PAULO, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Brazil registered 1,074 deaths from the novel coronavirus disease in the last 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 194,949, the Ministry of Health said Thursday.

Meanwhile, tests detected 56,773 more positive cases, raising the nationwide tally to 7,675,973, it said.

The southeast state of Sao Paulo, the most populous in the country, is the hardest-hit by the pandemic with 46,717 deaths and 1,462,297 cases.

The Latin American nation has the world's second highest COVID-19 death toll, behind only the United States, and the third largest caseload, surpassed only by the United States and India.