Brazil has registered 867,624 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, with 17,110 new cases since yesterday, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The total COVID-19 death toll rose to 43,332, with 612 new deaths since yesterday.
Mexico’s health ministry reported 4,147 new confirmed coronavirus infections along with 269 additional fatalities on Sunday, bringing the total in the country to 146,837 cases and 17,141 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the official count.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in Colombia have risen to over 50,000, the country’s Health Ministry said on Sunday, while neighboring Ecuador approached the same milestone.
Colombia has reported 50,939 cases of the coronavirus and 1,667 deaths. In Ecuador, cases have surpassed 46,700 and deaths stand at 3,896.
COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has overwhelmed Ecuador’s health system, in some cases leaving authorities unable to collect the bodies of the dead and forcing the government to store corpses temporarily in refrigerated shipping containers.
Colombia’s economy has been battered by the twin ills of a coronavirus quarantine put in place by President Ivan Duque and falling oil prices.
The country entered a national lockdown in late March, which is expected to be lifted on July 1.
But as certain sectors start to reopen and the quarantine begins to lift, medics are bracing for a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Also, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia was emerging from the novel coronavirus epidemic with minimal losses, having handled it better than the United States where he said party political interests got in the way.
“...We are working rather smoothly and emerging from this situation with the coronavirus confidently and, with minimal losses... But in the (United) States that is not happening,” Putin told state TV.
With 528,964 confirmed cases, Russia has the third-highest number of infections after Brazil and the United States.
Its official death toll stands at 6,948, much lower than in many other countries, including the United States which has had over 115,000 deaths. The veracity of Russian statistics has sometimes been the focus of fierce debate however.