Workers at a maquila in Ciudad Juárez, in northern Mexico, line up to receive a booster dose against covid-19, on February 1. JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ (REUTERS)
Mexico has broken a new record for deaths from covid-19 during the fourth wave of infections.
The country has registered this Thursday 927 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest number of deaths since September and the highest recorded so far this year.
The omicron attack has lost ground in terms of the number of confirmed cases, adding more than 34,200 on this day, according to official data.
Hospitalizations have also been reduced, but the peak in deaths remains a cause for concern.
The Undersecretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, insisted last Tuesday that there is an “extremely clear” trend that the pandemic is going “down”.
"Most likely, the trajectory will remain that way until its complete reduction or disappearance," López-Gatell said in the weekly report on the progress of the coronavirus.
A day later, the Pan American Health Organization, the continental representation of the WHO, asked for caution when commenting on the situation in the country and the assertion of a "complete disappearance."
“A high number of new cases continues to be observed in countries in the region, as well as in Mexico,” said Sylvain Alighieri, incident manager for the international organization.
López-Gatell pointed out in his report that there is a gap of about 21 days between the trends in cases and mortality.
The undersecretary was criticized last week because on the same day he said the pandemic was giving way, the country recorded the previous maximum number of deaths for the year, with more than 800 deaths.
“This is what sometimes puzzles some people, we saw it in the media last week, that they did not understand why, despite the fact that we had said that the epidemic is going down, there was still an increase in the mortality," he said.
The official's forecast is that deaths stabilize before the end of this week and decrease from the next, upon completion of the aforementioned 21-day period to which he referred.
Health authorities have defended that the deaths recorded have been lower than during last summer's wave and the second wave in early 2021. Vaccination has helped make omicron less deadly than other versions of the virus, and most cases serious and deaths are people with incomplete schemes or who were not vaccinated.
Hospitalizations in general beds fell to 35% occupancy, one percentage point less than on Wednesday.
The occupancy of beds with fans is at 25%, the same reduction of 1% compared to a day before.
Although the authorities have celebrated the "good news", they have recalled that the pandemic has been unpredictable at times and they ask not to fall into a relaxation that is reflected in a new change in the upward trend.
An analysis of all the deaths that have been registered in the year shows that they usually increase in the middle of the week and decrease towards the beginning of the next.
The challenge for the following days is to break the pattern and stop seeing new increases.
The country has accumulated more than 5.2 million infections and 311,554 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to official data.
There is, however, an underreporting recognized by the authorities.
The excess mortality associated with covid until the end of 2021 is 461,000 deaths, a difference of some 150,000 deaths that did not reach the government dashboard, in the absence of updating the data.
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