RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Brazil registered 543 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the national death toll to 196,561, the government announced on Monday.
The country's Ministry of Health confirmed 20,006 new cases, taking the nationwide count to 7,753,752.
The state of Sao Paulo, the most populous in the country, is also the most affected, with 1,473,670 cases and 46,888 deaths in total, followed by Rio de Janeiro with 439,345 cases and 25,617 deaths.
On Monday, the Sao Paulo government confirmed the first two cases in Brazil of the new COVID-19 variant first discovered in Britain. Enditem
