Mexico recorded its lowest daily COVID-19 death toll since April 2020 on Tuesday, while new coronavirus cases were below 1,000 for a third consecutive day.
The Health Ministry reported 37 additional fatalities, the lowest daily total since April 20 last year when 26 deaths were registered and Mexico’s death toll rose to 712. The ministry also reported 37 fatalities on June 14, 2021.
Total fatalities now number 291,241, but Tuesday’s death toll is another sign that the third wave of the pandemic is on the wane and evidence that vaccines are stopping people from dying.
The Health Ministry also reported 735 new cases on Tuesday, lifting Mexico’s accumulated tally to just under 3.85 million. New infections numbered 775 on Monday and 942 on Sunday, figures well below the November daily average of just over 2,500.
In other COVID-19 news:
• A consignment of 596,700 doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Mexico City on Wednesday, increasing the total number of Pfizer shots the government has received to just under 39 million. The latest shipment could come in handy for the inoculation of youths aged 15 to 17 because the Pfizer vaccine is the only one approved for use on children in Mexico.
The Health Ministry said in a statement that Mexico has received almost 1119.2 million pre-packaged doses of seven different vaccines, while an additional 47 million doses have been bottled in the country.
All adults have been offered at least one dose and more than 80% of the 18+ population is vaccinated. Mexico City has the highest vaccination rate in the country with more than 90% of adults having received shots.
• Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum spoke to the British Broadcasting Corporation about the pandemic and the capital’s high vaccination rate on Wednesday.
Asked how Mexico City was able to achieve one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, the mayor responded:
“We believe in education above everything. For example the use of masks we never put it as a mandatory thing, we just explained that it was very, very important for the city and we are probably the city that right now and during the pandemic used more masks. And it’s the same for vaccination. We have 95% of all the adults in Mexico City vaccinated already.”
Sheinbaum, a leading contender to succeed President López Obrador, said the high vaccination rate would aid Mexico City’s economic recovery.
“Especially in terms of labor. We lost a lot of formal jobs and we are now on the path of economic recovery,” she said.
“… Cities all over the world have many difficult problems in terms of reparation to the economy. But right now we have a plan that I think is going to work.”
• Campeche Governor Layda Sansores announced Tuesday that the use of face masks will be optional in government offices for workers who are fully vaccinated. The Morena party governor said last week she believed it was time to do away with the Gulf state’s mask mandate.
Sansores questioned the effectiveness of masks on Tuesday and asserted they have become “almost like a fetish.”
“[People] use them however they want to,” she said during her weekly social media program.
With reports from El Universal
