Mexico reaches 1 million COVID-19 cases, 100,000 deaths

Mexico has surpassed one million coronavirus cases and recorded nearly 100,000 confirmed deaths, top health officials say.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country now stood at 1,003,253, with at least 98,259 deaths from COVID-19, the Mexican Director-General of Health Promotion Ricardo Cortes Alcala announced, Saturday.

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The country has the world’s fourth-highest death toll from the virus after the United States, Brazil and India, according to an AFP news agency tally based on official figures.

It also has the 11th-highest number of infections.

Critics have continued to blame the increasing COVID-19 toll on the government’s refusal to follow internationally accepted practices in pandemic management, from face mask-wearing to lockdowns, testing and contact tracing.

Assistant Health Secretary Hugo Lopez-Gatell has previously said any wider testing would be “a waste of time, effort and money” and face masks “an auxiliary measure to prevent spreading the virus”.

Since the pandemic began, Mexico has managed to administer only about 2.5 million tests to its citizens and only seriously ill people get tested in Mexico.

Testing only 1.9 percent of the population since the pandemic began has made it hard, if not impossible, to effectively trace contacts, catch outbreaks early or identify asymptomatic cases.