The streets of downtown Mexico City, July 8, 2021 DPA via Europa Press / Europa Press
Mexico has fully entered the third wave of covid-19. The country has registered 11,137 cases in a single day on Tuesday, a figure that had not been reached since February 10 of this year, when the country came out of its critical point of the pandemic. However, due to vaccination, the upturn in infections has not had an impact on hospitalizations: only 26% of general beds and 21% of intensive care beds are occupied. Compared to the other peaks, "there is a lower proportion of increase in hospitalized people and even more in deaths", highlighted the Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell. In the last day, 219 people died from the disease.
The figures for this Tuesday continue the trend of recent weeks.
The Government, which initially resisted recognizing that the country was experiencing a third wave, has admitted that it has been experiencing this new series of cases for a month.
The rebound began in tourist areas but has already spread throughout the country.
The alarms first went off in Baja California, Quintana Roo or Yucatán, where the arrival of thousands of foreign tourists and the absence of distancing measures became a time bomb.
These three states, which are on orange traffic lights, have had to increase restrictions, such as imposing night curfews or closing some beaches.
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However, the focus of cases is once again in the center of the country, with Mexico City and the State of Mexico in the lead.
In a constant that has been maintained throughout the pandemic, the metropolitan area of the great capital is the most affected by the virus.
The general director of the Digital Agency for Public Innovation in Mexico City, Eduardo Clark, has warned that hospitalizations "have been on a strong trend in recent days."
In the metropolitan area of Valle México there are currently 2,146 people in medical centers, more than 500 intubated.
"Things can get dangerous if we don't take precautions," Clark said.
In parallel to the contagion curve, which increases from week to week, vaccination is also constantly advancing. In the last day alone, more than 500,000 doses were injected. Now it is the turn of those over 30 years old, as well as part of the population over 18 years of age in the border area with the United States — Sonora, Chihuahua and Baja California—, as part of a pilot plan to reopen the border. Since the program began in December, 51.3 million vaccines have been administered. The latest report from the health authorities highlights that 20.94 million people already have the complete guideline.
Vaccination has become the bulwark of the Executive of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in the fight against the pandemic. "Fortunately, there is a small outbreak of infections, but we already have more vaccination, therefore there are fewer risks of contagion," said this Wednesday in his morning conference the president, who has prioritized the return to face-to-face classes as the situation. After more than a year without face-to-face classes, some states, led by Campeche, gradually returned to schools, but the increase in infections suspended the return. “We can no longer continue with closed schools. We need to open, ”said the president, who assures that it will be possible to return in August - according to the school calendar - thanks to the advance in immunization.
In an example of diplomacy, Mexico agreed to the arrival of six different types of pathogens.
So far it has received more than 67 million doses, led by Pfizer and AstraZeneca, in addition, it has the two Chinese immunizers (Sinovac and Cansino), the Russian (Sputnik V) and the Johnson & Johnson unit dose.
Since the start of the pandemic, more than 2.6 million people have been infected with Covid-19 and at least 235,277 have died from the disease.
With these figures, Mexico remains the fourth country in the world with the most deaths from coronavirus, behind the United States, Brazil and India, according to the Johns Hopkins University count.
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