Mexico passes 90,000 virus deaths, Argentina records 30,000

Two Latin American countries hard hit by coronavirus each recorded another bleak moment in the pandemic on Wednesday with Mexico exceeding 90,000 deaths from its outbreak and Argentina surpassing a toll of 30,000.

Mexico has the fourth-highest death toll in the world and recorded another 495 fatalities on Wednesday, while Argentina's health ministry reported a new total of 30,071 deaths in the country with the seventh-largest number of confirmed infections.

Both countries still lag well behind Brazil, the region's worst-hit nation with five million recorded cases and almost 160,000 deaths. Peru and Colombia have each recorded more than 30,000 deaths.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador expressed his concern over his country's recent spike in COVID-19 cases in a Wednesday press conference and urged the public to stay vigilant.

The country will officially commemorate all those who died as a result of the pandemic during traditional Day of the Dead celebrations next Monday.

Lopez Obrador has rejected following the lead of European nations and imposing a curfew to restrict public movement after his government began easing earlier social distancing rules in June.

Argentina has seen the lion's share of new cases move away from Buenos Aires and into the country's interior provinces, where some hospitals have less than 20 percent of their intensive care beds available.

Authorities have imposed travel restrictions within the country but no provinces are under strict quarantine and stay-at-home orders in the capital have since been lifted after their introduction early in the outbreak.

© 2020 AFP