Coronavirus: Morgues and storage rooms are full of bodies. The true death toll in Mexico City is staggering

The number of people dying from the coronavirus pandemic in Mexico is five times higher than official government figures, according to health department insiders. A Sky News investigations team working in the country's capital Mexico City has documented cremations and funerals and gained access to morgues and storage rooms full of bodies - all indicate the official data is wrong. In much of Mexico City, the second largest city in Latin America, there is virtually no social distancing, with open air markets and some businesses operating normally, despite the coronavirus pandemic. The government claims that the virus curve has been flattened and that there will be a dramatic drop off in virus related deaths in the coming days. In a recent briefing, the country's president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the nation: "What the world knows about Mexico is that we are taming the pandemic, and we are basically doing this because Mexican people are making a conscious effort." But that has been dismissed by many dealing with the crisis as incorrect. An official within the government, but speaking anonymously, confirms the official figures are undercounting the actual mortality rate by a factor of at least five. Senior private sector medical specialists have told Sky News that they warned the government of the impending epidemic in January but were told that there was "nothing the government can do". It has fuelled speculation among people familiar with the true figures that the government is going to try to tough out the virus spread and deal with the fallout later. Failing to publish accurate death rates appears to be part of a strategy of containing panic in the worst hit poorer parts of Mexico City, which has an unofficial population of more than 30 million people and endemic poverty. As part of its investigation, Sky News has collated mortality figures and contacted or visited dozens of hospitals, crematoria and funeral parlours. With the help of staff, Sky News has accessed multiple hospital morgues and filmed rooms filled with bodies in bodybags, lying on gurneys or even stacked on wooden pallets because the morgue fridges are already full...MORE