<article><p class="lead">Brazil's two largest cities – Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro – have announced municipal holidays for all of next week in an effort to check runaway contagion by Covid-19.</p><p>Both cities will also close all non-essential businesses.</p><p>The country is on track to surpass 300,000 pandemic-related deaths later this week, second only to the US. Public and private hospitals are overflowing as a new more contagious variant spreads.</p><p>Vaccination remains slow, with just 5.8pc of the population having received at least one dose. But the pace is expected to pick up in coming days as supply increases. The bulk of the vaccines available in Brazil are supplied by China's Sinovac, through a partnership with the Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute. But a growing number of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be distributed next month as a result of a partnership with Rio de Janeiro-base lab Fiocruz. </p><p>According to estimates by local investment bank XP, the entire population above age 30 could be vaccinated by the end of August.</p><p>Fuel demand has been hit by the new restrictions, with <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2198326?keywords=brazil">gasoline sales</a> falling by 12.2pc and hydrous ethanol sales down by 2.2pc in the first 16 days of March compared to the same period of 2020, according to the mines and energy ministry's most recent Covid bulletin.</p><p>Brazil's civil aviation sector remains among the hardest hit, with jet fuel sales plunging by 42.2pc in the first half of March compared to 2020.</p><p>With the new variant in the spotlight, Brazilians are currently <a href="https://direct.argusmedia.com/newsandanalysis/article/2198539?keywords=brazil">barred from entering</a> more than 15 countries, and another 59 countries have placed restrictions on Brazilians or people who have been in Brazil, which has limited international flights to and from the country.</p><p>LPG sales have bucked the trend, with sales of 13kg propane cylinders, which most Brazilians use for cooking, increasing by 7.3pc. </p><p>Nearly all Brazilian states have announced some pandemic restrictions, despite President Jair Bolsonaro's continued criticism of social distancing measures. According to a recent survey by polling agency Datafolha, 54pc of participants classified Bolsonaro's management of the pandemic as bad or terrible, while 22pc said it was good or great. </p></article>
