The deputy health minister responsible for managing the coronavirus pandemic is predicting a decline in case numbers toward the end of the month.
Hugo López-Gatell, who has been the government’s coronavirus point man since early last year, said preliminary signs in half of Mexico’s states show a decline in the speed with which Covid has been spreading. He also said that this week is the second in a row in which there had been a reduction in cases.
“When the [downward] tendency becomes established, which will surely happen in the next 15 days, we shall be seeing a decline in the third wave, likely moving toward stabilization,” he told Thursday morning’s government press conference.
He cited Sinaloa as “the most clear example” of how the growth in new case numbers has dropped. “… we now have three weeks in which the pandemic has seen a reduction.”
López-Gatell said vaccination is the most important contributor to the improvement.
He said 78 million doses have been administered, providing 54.9 million people with at least one dose, or 61% of the adult population. An average of 750,000 shots are being given daily, a pace that ought to allow the government to reach its goal of giving at least one dose to every adult by the end of October.
Meanwhile, the positive news doesn’t apply to Tabasco, where new daily case numbers have broken a record: more than 4,000 were recorded over the four-day period ending Sunday, health authorities said Monday. With 6,731 new cases, the past week was the worst since the pandemic began.
One factor in the rising case numbers is likely due to the fact that Covid testing by the Ministry of Health has been tripled, though not enough to keep up with the demand in Villahermosa, the state capital, on Monday.
Nationwide, there were 14,814 new cases registered as of Tuesday afternoon, the federal Health Ministry said, bringing the total to 3.12 million. Total deaths rose to 249,529 with 877 additional fatalities registered today.
There are an estimated 133,159 active cases.
With reports from Milenio
