Mexico admits that the death toll from covid may be at least 60% higher

The Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, on March 23, Presidency of Mexico HANDOUT / EFE

The Government of Mexico admitted on Saturday on its website that the real death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is more than 322,000 people, 60% higher than the figure until official time of 201,429 deaths according to the number of confirmed deaths up to the moment with diagnosed tests.

The updated figures on excess mortality published by the Mexican Ministry of Health show that there is a lag of 294,287 deaths “associated with coronavirus”, 61.4% more than the deaths officially reported to date, according to Reuters.

For a long time, Mexican authorities have contemplated the possibility that the actual number of deaths from coronavirus is higher than that reported, but this new update places Mexico as the second-highest mortality country in the world after the United States and above Brazil.

The

Excess Mortality in Mexico report

known on Saturday indicates that until February 13 the country had registered 294,287 deaths associated with covid-19 since the disease arrived in the country in February 2020.

The figure is 120,576 more than the 173,711 deceased that were officially notified on February 13 by the Ministry of Health in its technical report.

Since then, 27,538 new deaths have been recorded, which would add up to at least 322,365 people who have died from the coronavirus.

Excess mortality is determined by comparing deaths in a given year with those that would have been expected based on data from previous years.

An analysis of death certificates determined that around 70.5% of excess mortality was related to covid-19, often because it was mentioned on death certificates as a factor or possible cause of death.

But some experts say that COVID-19 could have contributed to many other deaths because many people were unable to receive treatment for other illnesses because hospitals were overwhelmed.

Another reason behind the mismatch in figures is that Mexico does few diagnostic tests, and since hospitals were overwhelmed, many Mexicans died at home without taking the test.

The only way to get a clear picture is to review excess mortality and death certificates.

The new figure would be at the level of Brazil, which, with 310,000 deaths, is officially the second country with the most deaths behind the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University.

However, the population of Mexico, 126 million people, is much smaller than that of the United States, with more than 320 million inhabitants, and Brazil, which is close to 210 million people.

The new report also confirms the severity of the second wave of infections that hit Mexico after Christmas.

At the end of December, estimates of excess mortality were about 220,000 deaths related to covid-19 in Mexico.

The number grew by about 75,000 people in just six weeks.

In population terms, as of the February 13 cut-off date, Mexico had the highest excess mortality on the planet, not surpassed by any other nation.

According to Engineer Alejandro Cano, who keeps a detailed account of the impact and evolution of the virus in Mexico, “combining official information available so far, it is possible to identify 449,827 deaths, 312,241 of which are directly associated with covid, 46,193 could be false negatives and 91,393 have not been explained, ”he wrote on Twitter.

According to the Efe agency, the methodology of the new report from the Ministry of Health of Mexico is similar to that used by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), which found that Mexico had 108,658 deaths from covid-19 in the first eight months of 2020, a figure 55.56% higher than the almost 70,000 deaths recorded by the health authorities until August.

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