Mexico reports 278 more coronavirus deaths, nationwide toll soars to 47,144

Mexico’s Ministry of Health has reported 278 new coronavirus related deaths taking the overall death toll to 5,045. According to reports, the country recorded 2,112 new coronavirus cases on May 16 due to which the nationwide toll now stands at 47,144. So far 31,848 people have recovered from the deadly pandemic. As per reports, the new cases recorded on Saturday shows a slight decrease in the rate of new cases, over the previous two days Mexico had been recording more than 2,400 cases every day.

Re-opening Mexico

As per reports, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador o May 13 announced his plans to reopen the country, despite rising rates of coronavirus infections. According to Economy Secretary Graciela Marquez, the reopening will be gradual and he also claimed that there will be a new four-colour coded system in place that will allow people to easily identify which businesses and what activities are allowed.

Read: Virus Prompts Alert Of Mexico City's Emergency Room

Read: Mexico Sees Largest 1-day Coronavirus Case Rise, At 2,409

According to reports, construction, mining, and car and truck manufacturing are also set to resume. Mexico has been under immense pressure from the United States to reopen auto plants because, without the proper functioning of the plants in Mexico, it will be difficult to reopen the plants in the US and Canada. As per reports, Undersecretary of Health Hugo Lopez-Gatell has stated that the reopening of the country must be cautiously and should be well organized, otherwise Mexico risks a resurgence of the virus.

The proposed new colour system is as follows, areas in red will only allow essential services, orange areas is where non-essential services are slowly introduced and yellow areas are where public areas can now freely be accessed. The final colour green denotes that all activities can be carried out but with proper sanitary control measures.

Read: Mexico Prepares To Reopen Businesses

Read: Mexico To Reopen Construction, Mining, Auto Manufacturing

Coronavirus outbreak

After originating from China’s “wet markets”, the coronavirus has now claimed 311,827 lives worldwide as of May 17. According to the tally by international news agency, the pandemic has infected at least 4,636,173 people. Out of the total infections, 1,812,214 have recovered but the easily spread virus is continuing to disrupt many lives. Major cities still remain under lockdown in almost many countries and the economy is struggling.

(Image Credit AP)

(With inputs from AP)