Mexico Covid death toll passes India to become third worst in world

Hospitals nearly at breaking point, with people queueing to refill oxygen tanks amid shortages

Shoppers and vendors mingle in a street for the sale of Baby Jesus figures and accessories, as Mexicans prepare to celebrate “Dia de la Candelaria” or Candlemas Day, amid a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, in the center of Mexico City, Thursday, Jan. 28. (AP)

Mexico’s coronavirus outbreak became third-most deadly in the world as its death toll surpassed India, months after the country’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, refrained from imposing Covid-19 measures.

As of Friday, Mexico recorded 155,145 coronavirus deaths as against 154,010 deaths in India, a country with 10 times more people that has successfully managed to contain its burgeoning caseload in past few months.

Since the beginning of pandemic, Mexico has seen 1.8 million confirmed coronavirus infections and witnessed a record spike in cases since December. The country had a seventh-highest single-day spike in new infections over the past week.

Hospitals are nearly at breaking point, nearing capacity, with people queuing up for to refill oxygen tanks amid shortage reported at healthcare facilities.  

Mr López Obrador, who had refused to wear a mask and never encouraged people to do the same, tested positive for the virus last week after returning to the capital on a commercial plane from an event in central Mexico.

The passengers in the flight were contacted and journalists travelling with him were asked to isolate after the new broke out.

“The Covid-19 pandemic causes much sadness, much pain, it’s harmful, but more harmful, more dire is the plague of corruption; it’s worse than an illness,” Mr López Obrador said last week. He pledged that he would put on a mask only when there is no corruption.

As Mexico battled its severe pandemic, officials announced in February that they would not use "coercive" measures of fines, curfews and arrests to force citizens to obey pandemic restrictions. But the government closed schools briefly and suspended masses in church. 

India, a country of 1.34 billion people, has largely managed to control the pandemic. The daily average number of new infections has remained less than 12,000 months after reporting a record high of 90,000 single-day cases in September.

India has “successfully contained the pandemic” and “flattened its Covid-19 graph”, said its health minister, Harsh Vardhan.  

India has reported 10.7 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic, second to only US. But saw a steady decline in new cases despite releasing itself from one of the strictest lockdowns last year.

Mexico became the first country in Latin America to approve a Covid-19 vaccine on 24 December, approving Pfizer-BioNtech’s vaccine but did not report a decrease in infections. The country has since distributed nearly 630,000 doses.

Mexico’s death toll is now behind only the US and Brazil, with health officials acknowledging that the situation in the country could be worse than what is indicated by official figures, reported the New York Times. The report said the government may be underreporting hundreds or even thousands of cases.