Health authorities in Mexico reported on Monday that there are 712 deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in the country. In addition, 8,772 confirmed COVID-19 cases have accumulated since the beginning of the pandemic.
This means that 511 new positives and 26 fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours. After the highest peak of infection in a single day (764) occurred from Saturday to Sunday, between Sunday and Monday there was a decrease of 6.2 percent among confirmed cases.
Over the weekend, Mexico finally achieved 40,000 COVID-19 tests out of 130 million citizens. The government acknowledges that cases in Mexico are likely over 70,000, even though they have only been able to confirm 8,772. The under-reporting is due to the low number of testing being done in Mexico and a large portion of asymptomatic people who are unaware they are infected and spreading the virus.
Due to the spread of the coronavirus, the United States, Mexico and Canada extended restrictions on non-essential travel at their shared borders for an additional 30 days. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), for its part, announced that the United States and Mexico have extended restrictions on all non-essential land traffic on their common border.
Despite the imminent arrival of phase 3 of the epidemic in Mexico, when infections will accelerate at a faster pace, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reiterated that there will be no changes in his economic strategy to combat the coronavirus.