For the first time since the federal government introduced its stoplight system to assess the risk of coronavirus infection, none of Mexico’s 32 federal entities will be classified as a “red light” maximum risk state as of Monday.

The Health Ministry’s director of health promotion, Ricardo Cortés, announced Friday that as of Monday there will be eight “yellow light” medium risk states and 24 “orange light” high risk ones.

On the stoplight map currently in effect, 10 states are painted yellow, 21 are orange and one – Colima – is red.

For a two-week period starting September 14, Campeche, Chiapas, Chihuahua, Morelos, Quintana Roo, Sonora, Tamaulipas and Tlaxcala will be yellow light states.

The risk level was downgraded from orange to yellow in Morelos and Quintana Roo while the other six states are already at the medium risk level.

The government of Quintana Roo has established its own guidelines to determine which coronavirus restrictions can be eased and when and as a result downgraded the risk level in the northern half of the Caribbean coast state at the start of this week, a move that allowed beaches, gyms and archaeological sites to reopen at reduced capacity.

Of the 24 states that will be orange as of Monday, four – Tabasco, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz – are currently yellow while one, Colima, is red.

Cortés said that the infection risk level had decreased in Colima but increased in Tabasco, Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz, according to the stoplight system, which considers 10 different indicators to determine the stoplight color allocated to each state.

The 10 indicators are:

1. The Covid-19 effective reproduction rate (how many people each infected person infects);
2. Estimated case numbers per 100,000 inhabitants;
3. The weekly positivity rate (the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive);
4. Total case numbers;
5. The number of coronavirus patients per 100,000 inhabitants;
6. Hospital occupancy rates for general care beds;
7. Hospital occupancy rates for beds with ventilators;
8. Hospital admission trends;
9. Covid-19 mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 inhabitants); and
10. Covid-19 death trends (whether the number of deaths per week is increasing or decreasing).

Mexico continues to record thousands of new coronavirus cases every day and hundreds of Covid-19 deaths but Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who’s leading the government’s pandemic response, said last week that it was possible that the vast majority of the 32 states could switch to green light “low” risk by the end of the month.

The government’s strategy to combat the pandemic was heavily criticized this week by six former health ministers who outlined in a report a range of ways to “correct” the course, which included ramping up coronavirus testing and making face masks mandatory across the country.

López-Gatell, who has played down the importance of testing and been a somewhat reluctant advocate of mask use, mocked the “illustrious ex-ministers,” saying ironically that they should patent their “innovative” formula.

Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated tally of confirmed coronavirus case increased to 658,299 on Friday with 5,935 new cases registered. The Health Ministry estimates that there are 41,025 active cases across the country while the results of 87,210 tests are not yet known.

The official Covid-19 death toll passed 70,000 on Friday with an additional 534 Covid-19 fatalities reported. Confirmed deaths now total 70,183, the fourth highest tally in the world after the United States, Brazil and India.

Source: El Universal (sp)