Rapid tests for Covid-19 ongoing in Brazil

Residents of Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro's neighbor city, travelled Friday to the Caminho Neimeyer cultural complex, to be tested for the new coronavirus.

Since April, City Hall has tested more than 70-thousand people.

Using an app to make an appointment and avoid crowds, people living in the municipality can do a rapid test using a drive-thru system at 50 different points throughout the city.

Niteroi has the second highest number of confirmed cases in Rio state, almost 9-thousand by Thursday, and registering 300 deaths so far.

Niteroi's government plans on continuing the tests to monitor how the virus is acting in the community, taking the necessary further measures to avoid the spread of Covid-19.

"I think it's a very delicate situation," said Saulo David, who was being tested alongside his son.

For the university professor, the balance between public health and economy is the main challenge faced by the country "if you completely stop you can't pay the bills, you can't buy food. If you completely open everything, it will contribute even more with those numbers (of confirmed cases)," he said.

In the coming weeks, volunteers in Niteroi will also be testing one of the vaccines against the virus that is undergoing trials in Brazil.

By Thursday, Brazil counted more then 91-thousand deaths and more than 2,600,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Brazil's official coronavirus death toll is the second highest in the world after the United States.