“Vaccination is progressing, contagions are decreasing and so are deaths”, hammers the Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (“AMLO”), glorifying his management of the health crisis while Mexico recorded, Monday, May 3, only 112 deaths due to Covid-19 in twenty-four hours. An optimism severely contested by a still confidential report on excess mortality, which The world procured. The latter, drawn up by ten health and statistical institutions, including the national population register (Renapo) and the general directorate of epidemiology, reveals that the epidemiological assessment actually amounts to more than 330,000 deaths, much more than the 217 345 deaths officially recorded on Monday. Experts go further, claiming half a million victims.
This is the clear observation made by Hector Hernandez, sociologist at the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM): “The government minimizes the killing for political ends, denounces the researcher, who has been studying death certificates since March 18, 2020, the date of the first death attributed to Covid-19. Official numbers should be multiplied by 2.5 to get the actual death toll. “ An excess mortality confirmed by the report which has not yet been made public.
The analysis is based on an annual comparison of death certificates. The latter reveals that 329,965 Mexicans died of Covid-19 until April 23, or 53.8% more than the official death toll (214,504 deaths) on that date. Since then, 2,841 additional deaths have been officially recorded by the government, bringing the actual figure to more than 332,806. until Monday May 3.
“Phenomenal failure”
This gigantic readjustment would make the country of 128 million inhabitants jump from fourth to third in the world in absolute number of deaths, ahead of India (222,408 deaths, recorded on Tuesday by John-Hopkins University), behind Brazil ( 408,622 dead) and the United States (577,523). With 2.3 million confirmed cases of contagion, the Mexican case fatality rate would drop from 9.5% to more than 14%, a record among countries with more than 100 million inhabitants.
“This colossal difference is explained by the inclusion of deaths at home, in the street or in public transport”, underlines Mr. Hernandez. According to him, excess mortality is itself underestimated: “The causes of all 458,026 additional deaths [toutes raisons confondues jusqu’au 23 avril] are not always identified by the doctors who sign the death certificates. Without counting the deaths not declared by the families. “
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