Tens of thousands of protesters marched in some of the country's largest cities, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia, calling for the president's impeachment and better access to Covid-19 vaccines.
The demonstrations mark the largest protests that the country has witnessed since the coronavirus pandemic began last year.
As of May 30, 2021, Brazil, with over 16,471,600 confirmed cases and over 461,142 deaths, has the third-highest number of confirmed cases and the second-highest death toll from COVID-19 in the world, behind only the pandemics in the United States and India.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been heavily criticized for downplaying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has dismissed the notion of wearing a mask, encouraged mass gatherings, and cast doubt over the importance of vaccines.
The country launched a mass immunization campaign for the COVID-19 pandemic on January 17, 2021, when the country had 210 thousand deaths.
The Instituto Butantan imported the first 6 million doses of CoronaVac in a collaboration with the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech.
There is no deadline forecast for immunizing the country's entire population due to the lack of supplies for vaccine production and also due to political disputes between the São Paulo state government and the Jair Bolsonaro government.
Until May 28, 2021, more than 45 million people, about 24,3% of the Brazilian population, have been vaccinated with the 1º dose from any vaccines; the 2º dose has been injected in 21,867,556 people 11,30% of the population.