Bolsonaro Rejects National Lockdown Calls in Brazil Amid Case Rise
President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro speaks during pronouncement on the new emergency aid amidst the coronavirus pandemic  (COVID-19) at the Planalto Palace, on March 31,2021 in Brasilia, Brazil. Brazil has over 12,658,000 confirmed positive cases of Coronavirus and has over 317,646 deaths. Mateus Bononi/Getty Images

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is snubbing new calls of COVID restrictions amid the rising cases in the country, insisting that there would be "no national lockdown."

Health experts are prompting the measure after the country is seeing its highest COVID-19 deaths in just a day since the pandemic started.

Brazil's Health Ministry reported that the country had surpassed the 4,000 daily COVID death toll for the first time, with 4,195 registered deaths on Tuesday, according to an Associated Press report. This pushes the total COVID deaths in Brazil to almost 337,000. This makes Brazil the country with the second highest total COVID death s, next to U.S., with 555,000.

This marks Brazil as the third country to reach the said threshold. According to MSN, U.S. and Peru are the first two countries to reach the 4,000 daily death toll.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's political adversaries are demanding tougher measures to curb the spread of the virus in the country.

"We're not going to accept this politics of stay home and shut everything down," Bolsonaro was quoted in a report.

National Lockdown Calls

Leading public health institute Fiocruz suggested on Wednesday that Brazil should impose a lockdown to bring some relief to its health care system.

The institute said that lockdown measures are bitter, but it is needed in moments of crisis and the collapse of the health care system. It added that it is what the country is experiencing now, according to an AFP News report.

The Brazilian Association of Collective Health, with its 20,000 members, is calling for a three-week national lockdown.

"The serious epidemiological situation that is leading to the collapse of the health system in several states requires the immediate adoption, without hesitation, of strict restrictive measures," the statement was quoted in an ABC News report.

Despite Bolsonaro's hesitation to implement a lockdown, local authorities took the matters into their hands and decided to ban large religious gatherings.

Brazil's federal government has labeled them as part of essential services.

However, Brazil's solicitor general André Mendonça said that there is no Christianity without community life. Mendonça is an evangelical pastor.

COVID Cases in Brazil

Meanwhile, aside from the rising COVID cases in the country, Brazil has reported its first confirmed case of the South African variant, which is considered a highly contagious COVID variant.

The country's biggest city, Sao Paulo, said on Wednesday that it would start opening some 600 new graves per day.

This is way above that its previous record of 426 burials in a day within the last days of March, according to a Reuters report.

Scientists expressed concern about how the cases will play out, with the Brazilian variant infecting the public and the emergence of the South African variant.

Both are considered more contagious and possibly more deadly as compared to the original virus strain.

Maria Carolina Sabbaga said that it could be a huge deal as the Brazilian variant has already taken over. Sabbaga is one of Butantan's coordinators responsible for studying the emerging COVID variants.

Aside from posing to be more deadly, current vaccines seem to offer less protection against it, according to studies.

A woman in Sao Paulo was confirmed to be infected by the South African variant.

Immunizations in Brazil have been slow, with its program built around the vaccines from AstraZeneca and China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd.

Both were proven effective against the Brazilian variant.

WATCH: Bolsonaro asks court to reverse Brazil's COVID-19 restrictions - from Al Jazeera English