This is a CNN article, not a source for numbers on cases in the region. It's extremely hard to draw any conclusions from this.

> The number of burials carried out by victims of Covid-19 in Manaus, in January this year, exceeded the data for 2020 for the city. Last year, 1,285 burials from the disease were counted, against 1,333 in the first 21 days of 2021 alone.

The "first wave" happened starting in ~May 2020 (and testing increased across the year) so this kind of un-normalized comparison across time periods isn't useful.

> The total made in January for all statements (all types of death, including coronavirus), was 2,964 - the highest number of burials carried out in a single month since the start of the pandemic. In 2020, the month with the highest burial record in Manaus was April, with 2,433.

This is a great example of bad data reporting: it's almost impossible to interpret this without comparison to historical mortality trends for the region. It sounds like mortality is slightly higher overall, but it's really difficult to say.

> Last year, May was the month that registered the most burials due to the disease, with 348. In comparison with this year's numbers, January 2021 brings 283% more burial records.

Again, same issue as the first quote: making a non-normalized comparison to May 2020 ignores the substantial increases in testing that has happened since that time.