Mexico's Fourth- Highest in Covid Deaths; India Death Toll Possibly Higher
SCIUTTO: Welcome back. Well, Mexico now has the fourth highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world at nearly 68,000, but the actual number could be much higher. Even the Mexican government admits that is likely because so few people have been tested.</s>HARLOW: Let's go to our Matt Rivers. He joins us this morning in Mexico City. I mean, Matt, this is quite an admission from the government and the number that they're putting out there in terms of how many people they think really may have perished from Covid-19 is stunning.</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, Jim and Poppy, the criticism of Mexico's government from the start has been that because of a lack of testing in this country, they don't really have an idea at how bad things are in regards to this pandemic here. But we do have other indicators that show that things are really bad. So recently Mexico's health ministry took a look at all recorded deaths from March 15th through August 1st of this year and what they found was more than 120,000 excess deaths, that basically means that they recorded about 120,000 extra people dying during this time period this year as compared to other years, more normal years, non-pandemic years. And we know that of that 120,000 figure, more than 47,000 are directly attributed to Covid-19. But what about the remaining 75,000 or so? I spoke to a director of a Covid response unit at a very prestigious hospital here in Mexico City, and he's of the opinion that of all those excess deaths, in fact the vast majority of those excess deaths, are due to Covid-19. And Mexico's government itself has said multiple times that the actual death toll is far higher than what they've actually put out there officially because of the lack of testing. People with symptoms died before ever getting a test, Jim and Poppy. And it just gives you an idea that things are not great down here in Mexico.</s>HARLOW: No. Matt Rivers, thank you for the reporting from Mexico City. Medical experts in India also fear the deaths there may be much higher than reported.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes. It's been a number of countries. Italy as well, underreporting. Vedika Sud joins us now from New Delhi with more. What do they base this assumption on?</s>VEDIKA SUD, CNN REPORTER: Well, the deal is that in India there are a lot of tests taking place at this time. As of today, the health ministry has come out and said that over 50 million tests that have taken place and 30.3 million taking place in the last two weeks. But I've spoken to medical experts and others and this is what they have to say. They say as far as the deaths are concerned, India's got the third highest number of deaths here compared to the rest of the world after the U.S. and Brazil, but these numbers could be underreported for one simple reason, which is, like Matt pointed out, even here in India, people are not getting themselves tested, especially in rural areas where the public healthcare infrastructure is quite frail and fragile. So a lot of people are dying without the tests being conducted and that is primarily the reason why there could be underreporting here in India when it comes to casualties. We've put that question to the health ministry today that held a press conference about three hours ago. They didn't take our question or respond it to. But this is a very important question that we want the government to be answering sooner rather than later. Today in the press conference, the government today (ph) even came out and said that while the cases are rising, it's because that the economies are opening here in India. There has been an easing of restrictions across India because of which the numbers are going up and they, once again, appeal to the people to wear masks and maintain social distancing, Jim and Poppy.</s>SCIUTTO: Those rules apply no matter what the country is. That's what the science says. Vedika Sud, thanks very much.</s>SUD: Thank you.</s>SCIUTTO: Well, nearly two dozen wildfires -- sound familiar -- still raging in California. One is so bad officials are calling it an unprecedented disaster. All the time new records being set. We'll bring you more.