The Undersecretary of Health predicted that today the country would be in the final stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
MEXICO CITY (Agencies) – Hugo López-Gatell, Undersecretary of health, said during President López Obrador’s April 16 conference that by this day, the country would be in the final stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The end of the first cycle of the Covid-19 epidemic that is, until 95% of the cases are exhausted would be June 25,” explained López-Gatell on that occasion, adding that this scenario would only occur if the mitigation measures and the healthy distance were met.
Although the date is here, Mexico is experiencing a very different reality than that one predicted. A total of 196,847 people have been infected, and 5,437 new infections have been recorded, according to the latest official data on June 24.
There are 24,036 confirmed active cases in the country, representing the ongoing epidemic. There are 256,336 negative cases, 62,475 suspected cases, and a total of 515,658 people studied.
On the international scene, the World Health Organization (WHO) records the Americas as the place where most confirmed cases are concentrated, with 1,091,555.
Regarding the availability of general beds (26,637) in the IRAG Network, he reported that 14,750 and 11,887 (45%) are occupied.
The regions of Mexico most affected by the advance of the coronavirus are Mexico City, State of Mexico, and Tabasco.
In one of the most challenging moments of the pandemic, Mexico was warned by a representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) last week, adding that social distancing measures should not be relaxed yet.
Since the first case of coronavirus was diagnosed in Mexico on February 28, Lopez-Gatell has twice altered estimates of probable deaths. In early May, the government estimated that mortality could reach 6,000. A month later, Lopez-Gatell said up to 35,000 could die.
The Undersecretary, for his part, has said that “from a technical point of view,” there are no contradictions in the data presented by COVID-19 in Mexico. “There are positive aspects as we will see in these curves, there are aspects that are challenging, there are aspects that as we have also pointed out in some cases, require particular attention,” he said.
López-Gatell declared that sometimes the news is “positive” and “encouraging,” but that other times it is not “and it is merely what is happening and it is what one would not want to happen, but it is what is happening, and it is imperative that you, as communicators, and all the audience know exactly what is happening”. (SIC)
“I know it’s difficult. We mentioned it several times as well. Sometimes society would like to have only one idea of what is happening at any given time with absolute certainty, but that is not how reality works, and that is not how scientific and technical resources that consider phenomena as complex and as diverse as an epidemic work,” he asserted.
