The federal Health Ministry reported 5,127 new coronavirus cases and 330 COVID-19 deaths on Monday.
Both figures were much lower than the average for the past seven days but reported infections and deaths are invariably lower on Sundays and Mondays due to a drop-off in testing and/or the recording and reporting of test results on weekends.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally stands at 3.43 million while the official death toll is 263,470. There are 92,970 estimated active cases across Mexico, a 7% decrease compared to Friday.
More than 13,200 cases per day were reported on average in the seven days to September 5, while the average daily death toll was 711.
Mexico has the highest case fatality rate among the 20 countries currently most affected by COVID, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. There have been 7.7 fatalities per 100 confirmed cases here, a figure almost five times higher than the United States’ rate of 1.6. The high rate in Mexico is indicative of the country’s low testing rate.
Mexico’s COVID-19 per capita death rate is 206.3 per 100,000 people, the 19th highest in the world.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Just over 87 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, according to the most recent data. The Health Ministry said Sunday that 66% of the adult population – 58.9 million people – has received at least one shot. Just over 35.6 million of those people are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had both shots of a two-dose vaccine or were inoculated with one of the two single-shot vaccines Mexico has used.
As of Sunday, Mexico had received a total of 104.2 million vaccine doses, about 38% of which were made by AstraZeneca.
• One-third of workers in Mexico reported that their employers have made vaccination against COVID-19 mandatory, even though doing so violates the law.
Just over one in five respondents to a poll conducted by job search website OCC Mundial said they were asked to present proof of vaccination to their employers. Another 11% said they were instructed to get vaccinated but haven’t yet had to present their vaccination certificates.
The federal Labor Ministry has said that employers cannot legally require their workers to be vaccinated or make vaccination a hiring prerequisite because to do so would violate the Federal Labor Law.
• Another case in which a health worker failed to administer a vaccine properly was detected in Boca del Río, Veracruz. A young woman who filmed herself getting her shot complained because the nurse pierced the skin on her arm with a syringe but didn’t inject any vaccine.
State welfare delegate Manuel Huerta Ladrón de Guevara attributed the error to fatigue. The nurse was told to take the rest of the day off.
Several other incidents in which vaccines were not properly given have been detected in Mexico, including one in Sonora and another in Mexico City.
• Some vaccinated people have reported difficulties obtaining their vaccination certificates. One man who spoke with the newspaper Reforma said he followed the instructions on the government’s vaccination website but never received a link to download his certificate. A vaccinated woman recounted a similar experience.
Other fully vaccinated people are waiting for their certificates to be updated to show they have received both doses of two-shot vaccines. One woman told Reforma that her mother received the second of her two shots in April but her vaccine certificate doesn’t mention either of the jabs she was given.
With reports from El Economista, Milenio and Reforma
