Mexico’s revised COVID death toll is much higher than before

New data showed that more than 321,000 Mexicans have died from COVID, a 60 percent increase from the previous count.

In a grim development, the government of Mexico said over the weekend that the true numbers of COVID-19 deaths are much higher than the official figures, offering significant insight into the effect of the pandemic on the Latin American nation. The ministry of health said on Saturday that 294,287 people had died from the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico through February 14, an increase of 60 percent from the previously recorded number of deaths. As of Monday, 27,538 more deaths were registered, bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths to more than 321,000. Johns Hopkins University’s COVID tracker, which Al Jazeera uses as its official count, showed Mexico’s death toll at 201,832 on Tuesday. But if the new Mexican government numbers are eventually reflected in the Johns Hopkins count, it would put Mexico just ahead of Brazil (313,866) in global deaths, behind the world fatality leader, the United States (550,371), two countries with much larger populations.