Mexico now has 14 red light maximum risk states on the coronavirus stoplight map after an additional four states switched this week amid rising case numbers.

Ten states – Mexico City, México state, Guanajuato, Morelos, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Querétaro, Hidalgo and Tlaxcala – were painted red on the stoplight map that was published by the federal Health Ministry on January 15 and took effect January 18.

This week, San Luis Potosí, Guerrero, Puebla and Nayarit all switched to red due to their worsening coronavirus situations.

Mexico hasn’t had so many maximum risk states since August when 16 states were red during the first half of that month. By mid-September there were no red states, a situation that was maintained until late October.

However, the situation began to worsen and 2020 ended with five states including Mexico City at the red light level. That number doubled to 10 two weeks ago as case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths rose in the wake of Christmas-New Year celebrations before increasing to 14 this week.

The Health Ministry is scheduled to publish an updated stoplight map on Friday night, meaning that it is not yet known whether all of the 14 states that are currently red will start next week at the same risk level.

One thing that is clear is that January has already surpassed December as the worst month of the pandemic in terms of both new coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths.

The Health Ministry reported 399,425 new cases in the first 28 days of January, an increase of 28% compared to December with numbers for three days of this month still to be reported. Mexico’s accumulated tally rose to 1.82 million on Thursday with 18,670 new cases reported.

The reported Covid-19 death toll in the first 28 days of the month was 29,338, a 48% increase compared to the entire month of December. The single-day death toll has regularly exceeded 1,000 this month, peaking on January 21 at 1,803.

An additional 1,506 deaths were registered Thursday, pushing the official death toll to 155,145. Mexico has now recorded the third highest number of deaths in the world behind the United States and Brazil, having passed India’s total on Thursday.

Nine states have an occupancy rate for general care hospital beds above 70%, according to federal data. They are Mexico City, 88%; México state, 84%, Hidalgo, 82%; Puebla, 81%; Guanajuato, 80%; Nuevo León, 79%; Morelos, 77%; Nayarit, 73%; and Guerrero, 71%.

Only about 40% of such beds and 52% of those with ventilators are occupied in San Luis Potosí but the state government nevertheless decreed a switch to maximum risk red on Monday, citing a recent increase in case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitals in San Luis Potosí city have been under severe pressure in recent weeks.

Tighter economic restrictions, including reduced capacity for businesses and shorter operating hours, were implemented as a result of the red light designation. San Luis Potosí has recorded more than 49,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and 3,695 Covid-19 deaths.

Guerrero was the second state to turn red this week, switching to that color on Wednesday. Governor Héctor Astudillo said the southern state, where tighter economic restrictions will remain in place until at least February 14, is facing “the worst moment of the pandemic.”

The governors of Puebla and Nayarit both announced Thursday that they were switching to maximum risk red.

Miguel Barbosa of Puebla said the authorities were most concerned about the coronavirus situation in the state capital and surrounding areas.

“We had a day yesterday [Wednesday] that in terms of Covid was very serious and now … Puebla is red. … The center of infection continues to be the capital of the state, Puebla, and the outlying area,” he said.

More than 1,400 coronavirus patients are currently hospitalized, more than any other time in the pandemic.

The state has recorded more than 60,000 accumulated cases and almost 7,000 deaths. There are currently almost 4,000 active cases in Puebla, according to federal Health Ministry estimates.

Barbosa said that the tighter, red light economic restrictions should begin to yield results in the coming days.

“We’re sure that we’ll soon come out of the red [level],” the governor said before calling on citizens to show “solidarity” and follow the health rules.

Announcing that Nayarit was regressing to red, Governor Antonio Echevarría said the Pacific coast state has recorded about 1,750 new cases in January and more than 200 Covid-19 deaths.

“There are practically no hospital beds now, it’s increasingly difficult to find oxygen for patients and the funeral services can’t keep up with demand,” he said.

“The situation is serious and it could get worse. A lot of us could still die – thousands – if we don’t take … control of the war against the pandemic. … In Nayarit we’re now on the red stoplight, it’s necessary that we voluntarily take shelter again. Lives are at stake – to the extent that is possible, please stay at home.”

The governor said that all nonessential business in the state capital Tepic and in the coastal area of the neighboring municipality San Blas must close between Friday and Sunday and remain shut on weekends until the government says otherwise.

The capacity of public transit services in Nayarit has been cut to 50% and street markets known as tianguis can only operate at the same capacity level.

The governor’s announcement triggered a protest by business owners Thursday in Tepic, who blocked various traffic intersections and warned that the restrictions would spell bankruptcy for many.

Nayarit has recorded almost 10,000 confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic and 1,363 Covid-19 deaths. The federal Health Ministry estimates that there are currently 858 active cases in the state.

Source: Reforma (sp) 

Mexico has ranked second to last among 98 countries in a “Covid Performance Index” developed by an Australian think tank to measure the effectiveness of pandemic responses around the world.

Developed by the Lowy Institute, the index tracked six measurements in the 98 countries for which data was available: confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests and tests per thousand people.

The period examined spans the 36 weeks after each country’s 100th confirmed case of Covid-19 using data available to January 9, 2021. Mexico recorded its 100th case on March 18 last year.

The Lowy Institute used the six indicators to calculate a score out of 100 for each of the 98 countries.

“A score of 100 indicates that a country achieved the best average score across the six indicators compared to all other countries examined at a comparable point in time. Conversely, a score of 0 indicates that a country had the worst average score at a given moment during the pandemic,” the think tank said.

Mexico’s score was 6.5, placing it 97th among the 98 countries, ahead of Brazil, which achieved a score of 4.3. Brazil ranks second in the world for total Covid-19 deaths with more than 220,000 whereas Mexico currently ranks fourth with more than 153,000. Mexico’s death toll will likely soon pass that of India, which currently ranks third. The United States ranks first with almost 430,000 fatalities.

Brazil ranks third for confirmed coronavirus cases with just under 9 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while Mexico ranks 13th with just over 1.8 million. However, Mexico’s accumulated tally is considered a significant undercount due to the low testing rate.

The presidents of both Mexico and Brazil have repeatedly downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, opposed strict lockdowns and failed to advocate forcefully for face masks. Another thing that President López Obrador and Jair Bolsonaro have in common is that they both contracted the virus, the former just days ago.

The other countries among the 10 worst ranked by the Lowy Institute were Colombia, Iran, the United States, Bolivia, Panama, Oman, Ukraine and Chile.

New Zealand, which has only recorded about 2,000 cases since the start of the pandemic and just 25 Covid-19 deaths, was ranked first for the effectiveness of its pandemic response with a score of 94.4 out of 100. The island country implemented a strict lockdown at the start of the pandemic and closed its border to most foreigners while maintaining a tight quarantine program for returning citizens.

Vietnam ranked second followed by Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia and Sri Lanka. China was not included in the rankings due to a lack of publicly available data on testing, the Lowy Institute said.

The think tank noted that the coronavirus pandemic has affected the Americas (North and South) more than any other continent.

It said that smaller countries with populations of fewer than 10 million have consistently performed better in managing the pandemic than their larger counterparts. Mexico has a population of 126 million, according to 2020 census results, and one of the largest cities in the world in Mexico City, which has been the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the start.

The Lowy Institute also said that richer countries unsurprisingly had more resources available to fight the pandemic and performed better on average than developing countries for most of the crisis to date. However, it noted that “the relatively ‘low-tech’ nature of the health measures used to mitigate the spread of the virus to date, including large-scale lockdowns, may have created a more level playing field between developed and developing countries in the management of Covid-19.”

Mexico implemented a national social distancing initiative between late March and the end of May, which entailed the suspension of nonessential economic activities, but it never enforced a hard lockdown involving restrictions on people’s movement. Since early June, a stoplight system has been used to guide restrictions but freedom of movement has remained largely unaffected.

The Lowy Institute also examined the success or otherwise of different political systems in managing the pandemic.

“Despite initial differences, the performance of all regime types in managing the coronavirus converged over time,” it said.

“On average, countries with authoritarian models had no prolonged advantage in suppressing the virus. Indeed, despite a difficult start and some notable exceptions, including the United States and the United Kingdom, democracies found marginally more success than other forms of government in their handling of the pandemic ….”

Mexico’s federal government, the fourth since a new era of democracy began in 2000 with the end of the the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s quasi-dictatorial, seven-decade rule, has maintained that people must retain their right to freedom amid the pandemic and as a result hasn’t enforced curfews or travel restrictions as some other countries have, or issued a federal mask mandate.

“The most important thing is freedom,” López Obrador said late last year when asked about a federal lawmaker’s refusal to wear a face mask during a meeting.

“People have to decide freely [what to do] and have confidence in [their fellow] Mexicans because they always act wisely, the people are wise,” he said.

The federal government has been widely condemned for its pandemic response, with much of the criticism focusing on Mexico’s low Covid-19 testing rate and the failure to enforce a strict lockdown.

The publication of the Lowy Institute’s performance index comes just after the news agency Bloomberg updated its “Covid Resilience” rankings. Mexico ranked last among the 53 countries included in Bloomberg’s index, which used 11 indicators to assess the coronavirus situation in individual countries and their government’s effectiveness in handling the pandemic.

Mexico News Daily