The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care beds in Mexico City hospitals will peak next week, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said on Sunday.
Speaking at the Health Ministry’s nightly coronavirus press briefing, López-Gatell said that about 1,800 Covid-19 patients are expected to be in the capital’s intensive care wards between May 11 and 15. The prediction is based on the estimate that the transmission of the virus will reach its peak in Mexico City between Wednesday and Friday of this week, he said.
With that scenario looming, the Mexico City government has put up signs in 89 different locations warning residents that they are areas of high risk of infection because large numbers of people pass through them.
Placed in 51 metro stations, 31 transit hubs (mainly bus stations outside subway stations) and seven public markets including the Central de Abasto wholesale market and the sprawling Mercado de la Merced on the fringe of the capital’s historic center, the yellow and black signs bear messages such as “Careful! High contagion area” and “Keep your distance and don’t touch anything.”
Mexico City is the worst affected entity in the country in terms of both Covid-19 cases and deaths from the infectious disease.
López-Gatell said on Sunday night that the number of confirmed cases across the country had increased by 1,383 to 23,471 and that the death toll had risen by 93 to 2,154. He also said that there are 191 suspected coronavirus fatalities that have not yet been confirmed.
More than a quarter of the confirmed cases since Covid-19 was first detected in Mexico at the end of February – 6,417 – were reported in Mexico City while almost 4,000 more were identified in neighboring México state. The capital has reported 472 coronavirus-related deaths, almost double the 238 fatalities in Baja California, which has the second-highest death toll in the country.
México state has the third highest death toll with 199 fatalities followed by Sinaloa, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Puebla, where 170, 145, 118 and 102 people, respectively, have lost their lives to Covid-19.
Of the more that 23,000 confirmed cases, 6,933 are currently considered active, López-Gatell said, adding that there are 12,664 suspected cases of the disease and that almost 96,000 people have now been tested.
Mexico City also has the highest number of active cases, with 1,894, followed by México state, with 1,076. Tabasco has 344 active cases, Sinaloa has 287, Veracruz has 273, Yucatán has 261, Puebla has 241, Quintana Roo has 222 and Morelos has 216. No other state currently has more than 200 active cases, according to Health Ministry data.
While admissions of Covid-19 patients to intensive care wards in Mexico is predicted to spike next week, hospitals in the capital are already under more pressure than those in the rest of the country.
Two-thirds of hospital beds for patients requiring general care are already occupied in the capital while 59% of those with ventilators are currently is use, López-Gatell said.
Baja California has the second highest occupancy rate of regular hospital beds, at 53%, while Sinaloa ranks second for occupancy of beds with ventilators, with 55% currently in use.
At a national level, occupancy of regular hospital beds is 29% while 24% of beds with ventilators are in use.
President López Obrador said in late April that Mexico is prepared to respond to the worst of the pandemic and pledged that “no sick person will be left without a ventilator.”
Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)
