At the moment, authorities are ratcheting up restrictions as Brazil's outbreak surges to record levels.

Sao Paulo officials have taken increasingly dramatic steps to show they mean business, including reinforced blitzes to suppress the city's famous nightlife.

Police officer Eduardo Botero ran Saturday's operation was the situation that we would have never imagined.

There were hundreds and hundreds of people in a place without a single window and with all the doors closed, who was Sodom and Gomorrah?

With taxes and assault rifles?

Police officers broke down the door of the nightclub in the city's couple Redondo district, piercing the darkness with flashlights mounted on their weapons.

Hundreds of young partiers, a few of them masked coward on the dance floor as police silence the music and arrested organizers.

Revellers were forced to leave.

Like Jefferson, Dos Santos criticized the operation.

We pay taxes and we know the risks.

We may get sick or infect our family, but we need to do something in our life.

Officer Botero said the crackdown, while harshing people's vibes, would save lives.

This operation is about social and public health rather than a police operation.

We're here to disperse the crowd.

It was very positive and certainly many lives were saved today.

Covid, 19, killed 12,000 Brazilians over the past week alone, more than any other country, with 275,000 lives lost in total.

Brazil's death toll lags only the United States, where the epidemic is slowing.