The country's capital Mexico City has already released 8,072 more death certificates than the average for the same period in a span of four years, suggesting that the true figure of the death toll was significantly higher than what was being reported.

The investigators of the study, Mario Romero Zavala and Laurianne Despeghel, published on Monday by Nexos concluded that by the end of May, that number would swell by as much as 120%. They gathered the data from the capital's civil registries to approximately measure the number of death certificates made between the first day of the year to mid-May.

Mexico ranks bottom in testing in Latin America

Romero and Despeghel clarified that not all excess deaths were caused by COVID-19. They did say that some of those who died did not go to hospitals because they feared they might catch the coronavirus, and instead died of other causes.

The researchers said that the excess deaths from the overall death toll in the city alone that were confirmed to be connected with COVID-19 was at 25%, unlike in Germany or in U.K., the rates of which were at 97% and 54% respectively.

Their investigation further prodded into the underreporting of the death count in the country and in its capital. Health officials have thus far denied any deliberate miscalculations, so the cause must be a great lack of oversight.

As of yet, the country is ranked at the bottom in testing among Latin American countries, and is at the top because of its high mortality rate.

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Reported figures are very low

Mexican Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell previously said that his estimates would put the peak at May, and the death toll would climb to 6,000. He and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador were of the mind that the curve in the country has already flattened.

López Obrador's response to criticism about the low death toll was that people were suggesting the government was hiding the dead.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Alejandro Macías said that he was certain there was an underreporting of the true figure. He added he did not think it was a personal attack against the administration to admit that the official figures were incomplete.

According to Dr. Pablo Villaseñor, he believed that what officials said was the death count was disproportionate to what he was experiencing at the General Hospital in Tijuana.

He and his team of medical workers counted over 200 coronavirus-related deaths at their hospital, and the official death toll of Tijuana as of Friday was over 400 according to a recent report.

Romero, writer of the study, said in an interview with the Guardian that she too believed health officials were undercounting the death toll.

She further remarked that confirmed coronavirus cases were indicative of high testing. Because the Mexican government was directly opposed to testing, they might resort to undercounting the death toll.