This Tuesday the last morning conference was held with The Pulse of Health. From the National Palace, the undersecretary for Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo Lopez-Gatell He reported that in recent weeks, there has been a very sustained reduction in the epidemic, “we have had an invariant reduction for more than three months, each time a minimum number of cases is maintained,” he said.
López Gatell indicated that the occupancy of general beds has remained at 3% and 1% in beds with a fan. He highlighted that mortality due to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus it has been reduced in the last three months and remains at minimum figures.
In the last Health Pulsethe official presented a summary of the behavior of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. He highlighted that there were 4 waves (epidemic peaks) of coronavirus in the country; in the first wave, he said, the epidemic curve was extremely flat, compared to other countries; the second wave, which was mostly represented by the delta variantwas aggressive for recorded deaths and hospitalizations.
The fourth wave (with a predominance of the Omicron variant), he indicated, was three times larger than the third wave, but thanks to the coverage of vaccination against Covid-19the number of hospitalizations and deaths were “considerably” lower, he said.
He said that because the government started with a “ruined” health system, extreme measures had to be implemented, such as the National Day of Healthy Distancethis in order to reduce transmission and slow down the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic.
He said that the severe Covid-19 illness It only occurred in 5% of the country’s population.
Vaccination
The undersecretary of Health indicated that so far 199 million 58,979 doses of the Covid-19 vaccines, in 85 million 804,263 people. This, he said, only in the primary vaccination schedule.
It reported that vaccine coverage for people 18 years of age and over is 90% and that of people 14 to 17 years of age is 54 percent. Regarding the application of booster doses for people aged 18 and over, there is a coverage of 56 percent.
López-Gatell called for the population that does not have the vaccines against Covid-19take advantage of this month of April to get vaccinated.
Vaccination registry opens for people 12 years and older
The undersecretary indicated that as of Thursday, April 28, the registry for the vaccination against Covid-19 for boys and girls ages 12 and up.
“All boys and girls 12 years of age and older, the vaccines will be available for them to receive,” he said.
The pre-registration of vaccination will be carried out on the page mivacuna.salud.gob.mx.
“We are transitioning to the endemic state”: López-Gatell
The undersecretary of Health showed criteria that considers the World Health Organization (which are yet to be validated) to determine that a country is no longer in an epidemic state, which are: high response capacity; high vaccination coverage; very few deaths detected and few positive cases detected.
Given this, López-Gatell assured that Mexico already meets these criteria and it can be identified that the epidemic cycle is already closing in the country and moving to the endemic state.
The endemic state, he explained, is when humanity already lives with the virus, without this representing a serious situation. “Covid-19, the SARS-CoV-2 virus It is not going to go away from humanity, just as almost none of the respiratory viruses that have caused epidemics have gone away,” he said.
He indicated that it is very likely that Covid-19 will begin to behave as influenza does, which in cold weather increases cases and in hot weather they decrease.
Weekly report on Covid-19 in Mexico
The official reported that the report on the behavior of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Mexico will now be published weekly.
He added that since the epidemiological traffic light is expected to remain green throughout the country, it will no longer be issued.