Mexico suffering world’s highest Covid death rate as cases surge

BBC News shows that Mexico is currently suffering the world’s highest death rate from coronavirus, with hospitals at breaking point. 

More than 320,000 people are thought to have died in Mexico with coronavirus. The authorities have updated their figures which are some 60 per cent higher than they had previously stated. 

Sophie Raworth presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Will Grant in Mexico City.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The virus was confirmed to have reached Mexico in February 2020. However, the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) reported two cases of COVID-19 in mid-January 2020 in the states of Nayarit and Tabasco, one case per state. The Secretariat of Health, though the "Programa Centinela" (Spanish for "Sentinel Program"), estimated in mid-July 2020 that there were more than 2,875,734 cases in Mexico because they were considering the total number of cases confirmed as just a statistical sample.