Political earthquake rattles country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks

Jair Bolsonaro’s crisis-stricken administration has been rocked by the sudden sacking of Brazil’s defence minister and the subsequent resignation of the heads of all three branches of the armed forces.

The commanders of the Brazilian army, navy and air force – Gen Edson Leal Pujol, Adm Ilques Barbosa and Lt-Brig Antônio Carlos Bermudez – met with the president’s new minister on Tuesday morning and reportedly tendered their resignations during a dramatic and heated encounter. On Tuesday afternoon the defence ministry confirmed all three would be replaced, a political earthquake that rattled a country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.

Eduardo Pazuello expected to depart after 10 months as coronavirus fatalities near 280,000

The Brazilian health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, is set to be sacked after an inglorious 10-month tenure during which more than 260,000 Brazilians have been killed by a coronavirus outbreak that his government stands accused of catastrophically mismanaging.

Related: 'Covid is taking over': Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic

• Far-right president: ‘How long are you going to keep on crying?’
• Critics condemn Bolsonaro as ‘incurable sociopath’

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has triggered a wave of revulsion by telling citizens to stop “whining” about a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 260,000 people.

The far-right populist made the inflammatory declaration on Thursday, as Brazil’s already dire Covid situation deteriorated and its average daily death toll rose above that of the United States.

• Scientists call for immediate 14-day lockdown
• Brazil suffers record 1,840 daily fatalities

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro has ordered a coronavirus “curfew” in the hope of sparing the seaside city a repeat of last year’s Covid-19 “genocide” when it was pummeled by the disease.

The nighttime prohibition, which Mayor Eduardo Paes said would last from 11pm to 5am, was announced as hospitals across Brazil buckled under the strain of a crippling upsurge in infections and the South American country suffered its worst day of losses since the pandemic began.

Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, looks at the surge of infections in the Brazilian state of Amazonas that has left many hospitals without the most basic supplies and has prompted yet more protests against Bolsonaro

Rachel Humphreys talks to the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, about the Covid crisis in Brazil. A surge in infections linked to a new and seemingly more contagious variant has overwhelmed hospitals in Amazonas state, leaving many without the most basic supplies. Circumstances were so bleak that oxygen tankers were rushed over the border from Venezuela, the economically collapsed nation next door, with its leader, Nicolás Maduro, decrying what he called “Jair Bolsonaro’s public health disaster”.

Tom tells Rachel about the way the public have reacted to Bolsonaro and his government’s handling of this latest wave of infections. Inoculation began last Sunday, weeks after other Latin American countries such as Chile and Mexico. But Brazil, which has 212 million citizens, has so far secured only 6m doses of China’s CoronaVac shot and 2m of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.

Protests take place across country at what many see as president’s shambolic Covid response

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Thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets in their cars to demand Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment as polls showed support for the far-right president slipping over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

On Saturday, as Brazil’s official Covid-19 death toll hit 216,000, leftwing and centrist protesters organised motorcade rallies in more than 20 state capitals, including Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte and Belém.

• State hopes to transfer at least 60 babies from neonatal units
• Air force evacuates coronavirus patients from Amazon city

Authorities in the Brazilian Amazon are reportedly racing to save dozens of premature babies after a surge in coronavirus cases caused a catastrophic breakdown in the oxygen supply to hospitals and clinics.

On Friday, CNN Brasil reported that the northern state of Amazonas was seeking to transfer at least 60 babies from neonatal units in its capital, Manaus, to hospitals elsewhere in the country.