Mexico recorded 21,250 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday and 986 additional COVID-19 deaths, according to Health Ministry data.

The accumulated case tally now stands at 3.27 million while the official death toll is 255,452.

There are an estimated 129,251 active cases across the country with the highest numbers in Mexico City, Nuevo León, México state and Tabasco.

As of Tuesday, almost 19% of all officially reported COVID deaths had occurred in Mexico City, the country’s pandemic epicenter. The capital had recorded almost 48,000 fatalities while México state ranked second with more than 30,000.

Five other states have death tolls above 10,000. They are Jalisco, Puebla, Veracruz, Guanajuato and Nuevo León.

Of the 20 countries currently most affected by COVID-19, Mexico has the highest case fatality rate with 7.8 deaths per 100 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. It ranks third among the same group of countries for mortality with 199.5 deaths per 100,000 people. Among all countries, Mexico has the 19th highest mortality rate. Peru ranks first followed by Hungary and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In other COVID-19 news:

• President López Obrador said Wednesday that the federal government will offer booster shots to teachers, most of whom were vaccinated with the single-shot CanSino vaccine, only if the World Health Organization recommends it.

“All the teachers are already vaccinated, they were given a CanSino vaccine, just one dose and up until now the doctors, the specialists say that’s enough. If the WHO says a booster is needed we’ll do it but until now the doctors don’t recommend it,” he told reporters in Xalapa, Veracruz.

CanSino Biologics itself recommended earlier this month that a second dose of its vaccine be given six months after the first shot to improve recipients’ immune response.

• More than 81.9 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, according to the most recent Health Ministry data. More than six in 10 Mexican adults have now received at least one shot.

• Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday that coronavirus cases numbers were possibly beginning to trend downwards. However, the average number of daily cases during the past seven days was 18,089, a 1% increase compared to the daily average during the seven days prior.

López-Gatell also said that Mexico – which is currently amidst a delta variant-driven third wave of the pandemic – could see a fourth wave sometime in the future.

“While the epidemic exists in the world, all countries have the possibility of having a fourth, fifth or sixth wave. Several countries in Europe are already in their fifth and sixth waves, the United States is in its fourth,” he said.

With reports from Reforma and El Financiero