Brazil has reached a grim milestone with 500,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

According to the health ministry of the country, the number of new cases of the disease is growing.

Brazil is lagging in vaccination against COVID-19 amid rising cases. According to the Associated Press, the country's government said about 11 percent of the population is fully vaccinated.

Protests were held against President Jair Bolsonaro for not doing more to defend the country during the pandemic.

Bolsonaro downplayed the severity of the pandemic by calling the illness last year the flu. According to The Guardian, he has also resisted mitigation methods and promoted drugs that hadn't been proven effective against the disease, such as chloroquine.

There are already nearly 18 million confirmed cases in the country.