The third wave knocks on the door

If the undersecretary himself, Hugo López-Gatell, admitted yesterday in the morning conference that in the most recent week there was an increase of 9 percent in Covid infections and that it could be 15 percent or more this week, it is because The situation should be worrying.

But, it seems that without his Show in the afternoon they do not pay much attention to it, because although, for example, Mexico City left the traffic light green and turned yellow starting this Monday, the capital government decided to continue with the opening process, as if there had been no change.

Regarding the third wave of the pandemic, in Mexico it has happened to us like the story of Pedro and the wolf.

We warned that he was going to arrive with the Easter holidays and he didn't show up. Then we had the risk of the May 10 celebrations and that didn't happen either.

But, it turns out that, if you look at the figures carefully, calculating only the weekly averages, we reached the minimum number of infections on May 25 with 2 new cases daily.

The figure, under the same logic of seven-day averages, was 3 new cases on June 301. That is, in just under a month, there was an increase of 20 percent.

The absolute level remains relatively low compared to previous months and is comparable with the figures from June of last year.

International experience, however, tells us that until there is a larger proportion of those vaccinated, the risk of a rebound continues to persist if basic precautions are ignored.

There are multiple cases of outbreaks in our region. Adjusting the figures to the proportion per million inhabitants, in Argentina it went from 120 in February to 699 in June, an increase of almost six times; in Chile, from 176 in February to 379 this month; in Colombia, from 68 in March to 551 this month; In Brazil it had dropped to 64 in November and this month they are at 342, five times more.

Even in countries with notable success in vaccination, such as the United Kingdom, cases went from 24 cases in May to 135 today, five times more.

One of the hypotheses regarding the reason why in Mexico the jump is still moderate, is the natural immunization that has derived from unregistered infections, and that some serological surveys estimate up to 30 percent of the population.

The problem is that, with the emergence of variants, it is known that immunization derived from infections and not from the vaccine, can be weaker, so the risk of reinfection is high.

The most recent data indicates that with just over 40 million doses administered, only 13.3 percent of the population already has the complete vaccination schedule, while another 9 percent has it partial.

The proportion is still too low to be sure that a resurgence will not occur.

The slowdown in the pace of vaccination in the days after the election has already been widely commented on. But, even taking into account the average of the last 30 days, the result is an average of 500 thousand doses applied per day.

Even assuming –optimistically– that rate, it implies 250 thousand fully immunized people per day.

To have 60 percent of the population fully immunized, something like 75 million people, we would need just under eight months. That is, this goal could be achieved by February 2022.

The risk is that during this period new variants appear that cannot be contained by the available vaccines.

It's good that the Show to López-Gatell. How bad that the idea was conveyed that we are already on our way out.

With information of:

Enrique Quintana

THE FINANCIAL