The number of coronavirus fatalities in Mexico reached 60,000 last week. Top health officials previously described this milestone as a worst-case scenario or “catastrophic” level when they first began to talk about the pandemic and the potential death toll at the start of the year.
The most recent figures released by Mexican health officials point to 556,216 confirmed cases and 60,254 fatalities. However, the true figures are likely much higher as Mexico is one of the countries with the worst levels of testing worldwide.
Al 22 de agosto de 2020 hay 556,216 casos confirmados y 83,146 sospechosos de #COVID19. Se han registrado 614,070 negativos, 60,254 defunciones confirmadas y 380,492 personas recuperadas. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/q8k3KM3Du2
— Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez (@HLGatell) August 23, 2020
The figures place Mexico at the number three spot for most fatalities, just behind the U.S. and Brazil. Mexico is also number seven on the worldwide list of nations with most cases.
Reaching 60,000 fatalities was previously described as “catastrophic” by Mexico’s Undersecretary of Health, Hugo Lopez Gatell who, in a streamed news conference in June, forecasted coronavirus deaths to reach possibly 20,000 or 30,000 or in a “catastrophic” scenario, as many as 60,000.
Surpassing the “catastrophic” scenario comes at a time when Mexico is likely to have a much higher true number of cases with many going unreported. Since the pandemic started, Mexico only conducted 1,253,432 tests nationwide — a figure that health experts claim is leading to widespread undercounting.
(Sigh)… I am still crying for MEXICO: WHO says Mexico pandemic is “underrepresented”. High 50% positivity; tests are limited to 3/100k people per day, compared to >150/100k in US.
➡️ All this points to significant undercounted #COVID19 outbreak in pic.twitter.com/Yl2ELMWT6R
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) August 22, 2020
The number of tests per million inhabitants places Mexico at #153 or one of the nations that test the least worldwide, a series of worldwide charts at Worldometers.info revealed.
At the start of the pandemic, Lopez Gatell claimed that the low number of tests was based on a statistical model called Sentinel. The model purported to estimate a true figure. Just weeks into the pandemic arriving in Mexico, however, Lopez Gatell refused to disclose the most recent estimates from the Sentinel Model. Because Lopez Gatell limited testing for serious cases, Mexican health officials appear to be unable to provide a realistic figure for the number of asymptomatic cases in Mexico.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
