PUBLISH COVID-19 DATA IN FULL, JUDGE ORDERS

Brazil’s top court waded into the controversy surrounding official reporting of coronavirus death and infection rates, as a Supreme Court justice ruled the Health Ministry must revert to releasing the full set of data it had previously made available.

Over the weekend, the Health Ministry abruptly removed troves of detailed coronavirus data and said it would no longer publish cumulative totals, causing outrage across the political spectrum.

In a statement on the Supreme Court website early on Tuesday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes said the ministry must “fully re-establish the daily dissemination of epidemiological data on the COVID-19 pandemic, including on the agency’s website, under the terms presented until last Thursday.”