Tlaxcala is now the only state in the country where authorities are not publishing data about Covid-19 cases and deaths at the municipal level.

A report by the news website Quinto Elemento Lab in mid-April revealed that authorities in Mexico City, México state, Querétaro, Yucatán and Tlaxcala were not revealing data about coronavirus outbreaks and fatalities at the local level.

Since then, the governments of the first four entities have started reporting municipal coronavirus numbers online but authorities in Tlaxcala continue to keep figures for that state’s 60 municipalities under wraps.

To access that information in the small, central Mexico state, residents have to consult federal government figures whereas people in other states and Mexico City can go to state-run websites.

Defending the state government’s decision not to publish the data, Tlaxcala Health Minister René Lima Morales said that such information has to be managed with “a lot of caution” because municipalities with higher numbers of cases could be stigmatized.

Tlaxcala has only reported 261 confirmed Covid-19 cases since the disease was first detected in Mexico at the end of February. But with 30 deaths, its fatality rate of 11.5 per 100 cases is higher than the national rate of 9.6.

Source: El Universal (sp)