Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell reiterated Monday night that Covid-19 case numbers are on the wane in Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter.
Speaking at the Health Ministry’s coronavirus press briefing, López-Gatell said that case numbers have been declining in the capital since the week starting May 31.
He also said that the number of coronavirus patients admitted to hospital and deaths from Covid-19 have begun to decline.
“The number of daily deaths … in Mexico City is decreasing: they’ve been progressively and continuously decreasing in the past 15 days,” López-Gatell said.
The capital has recorded 56,876 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, of which 3,867 are considered active. It has also recorded 7,053 confirmed Covid-19 deaths.
The sprawling, densely populated eastern borough of Iztapalapa has recorded the highest incidence of confirmed cases in Mexico City followed by Gustavo A. Madero and Tlalpan. Cuajimalpa and Benito Juárez have seen the fewest cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
López-Gatell also reported that Mexico’s case tally had increased to 261,750 with 4,902 new cases registered by the Health Ministry on Monday. The national Covid-19 death tally rose to 31,119 with 480 additional fatalities.
Just under 10% of the total confirmed cases – 25,805 – are considered active while there are 73,035 suspected cases across the country.
Federal data shows that the positivity rate for the almost 580,000 Covid-19 tests whose results are known is 45.2%.
The positivity rate is much higher than most other countries because Mexico is focusing its testing efforts on people who have coronavirus-like symptoms.
After Mexico City, México state has recorded the highest number of accumulated cases, with 38,201. Only three other states have recorded more than 10,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. They are Tabasco, Puebla and Veracruz.
The only state to have recorded fewer than 1,000 cases is Colima, where 715 people have tested positive.
México state also has the second largest active outbreak in the country, with 2,157 cases as of Monday.
Seven states currently have more than 1,000 active cases. They are Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Tabasco, Veracruz, Coahuila, Yucatán and Jalisco.
Five states currently have fewer than 250 active cases, according to official data. They are Chihuahua, Colima, Morelos, Aguascalientes and Campeche.
At the municipal level, Puebla city has the largest active outbreak, with 838 cases, followed by León, Guanajuato; Mérida, Yucatán; Centro (Villahermosa), Tabasco; and Monterrey, Nuevo León.
After Mexico City, México state has the highest official Covid-19 death toll in the country, with 4,754 confirmed fatalities.
Baja California is the only other state to have recorded more than 2,000 fatalities, while more than 1,000 people have died from Covid-19 in each of Veracruz, Puebla, Sinaloa and Tabasco.
Among municipalities, Iztapalapa has the highest death toll in the country with 1,205 Covid-19 fatalities, followed by Gustavo A. Madero; Mexicali, Baja California; Tijuana, Baja California; and Puebla city.
Mexico’s fatality rate is 11.9 per 100 confirmed cases, well above the global rate of 4.6.
National data shows that 45% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied while 38% of those with ventilators are in use.
About three in 10 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 have required hospital treatment while just over 70% had less serious symptoms and were not admitted to the hospital.
The Health Ministry estimates that almost 160,000 people in Mexico have fully recovered from Covid-19, which has claimed the lives of almost 540,000 people around the world as of Tuesday morning.
Source: Milenio (sp), La Jornada (sp)
