Mexico will stop infections until October 2022: UAM

Mexico will be able to stop Covid-19 infections until October 2022, according to the evolutionary model developed by researchers from the Department of Economics of the Iztapalapa Unit of the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM).

By those dates, Mexico will have added three million 278 thousand 208 people infected with Covid-19, that is, more than one million 300 thousand additional people than we have today. And it is estimated that there will be 222 deaths, so “there would still be 918 more to go, compared to the data from January 73, 834.”

The highest number of deaths would occur largely because “the learning factor of the hospital system could not be realized, with the dismantling of Seguro Popular, the creation of Insabi and the lack of training of medical personnel. We do not believe that it will be able to overcome the deficiencies it has had since the beginning of the epidemic,” says Roberto Gutiérrez Rodríguez, head of the Department of Economics at the UAM Iztapalapa.

Zero contagion would be possible, largely with the arrival of vaccines, which represents an enormous challenge, given that a range of between 159 thousand to 318 thousand daily doses would have to be applied, that is, an average of 200 thousand that up to now it has not been achieved, he explained.

Reducing this proportion of deaths also requires investment in infrastructure and better training of doctors.

Once the new wave of infections caused by the end-of-year festivities has been assimilated, Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Marco Antonio Pérez Méndez, a researcher from the same department, agreed that it will not be until early April 2021 that the level of infections could begin to decrease. but level zero will not be reached until a year and a half later: the second week of October 2022.

Of the deceased, specialists assure that the fatality rate was reduced, “but it has done so at an astonishingly slow rate,” going from 11 percent on April 30, 2020 to 8.5 percent currently, “by far the most top of the world.”

They warned that this scenario could be modified if the presence of a fourth variant of the virus, called Mexican, which is already being studied in Guadalajara, is confirmed, or if the presence of the English, South African or Brazilian variants increases.

In an interview with El Sol de México, Roberto Gutiérrez said that until now calculating mortality projections continues to be very complicated based on official data.

He indicated that since April when they began to apply their model, the multiple rectifications by various researchers have been taken into consideration: from Raúl Rojas, from the Free University of Berlin, who applies an expansion factor of 2.5, to the Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), which lowers it to 1.56.

That is why the Gompertz model, used at the UAM, uses official fatality rate figures, that is, “the accumulated death/infection coefficient that has generally tended to fall rapidly in the rest of the countries, but has done at an astonishingly slow pace in ours.”

From this scenario, Gutiérrez Rodríguez affirmed that the strategy with which Mexico faces the pandemic “demands a change of direction more than ever.”

He said he does not believe in herd immunity, when 70 percent of the population has had contact with the virus, but so far clinical trials have shown the high possibility of reconfection.

He indicated that the availability of the vaccines, whether or not they are those with two doses and the speed of their application in the population will impact the projection of the goal, because he assured that maintaining a healthy distance, the use of Face masks and constant hand washing will be measures with which the population must contribute to reduce infections and the lethality of the virus.

The specialist explained that they are working on the possibility of presenting a run of the model in the case of Mexico City, which contributes 26 percent of coronavirus cases, despite having only nine percent of the national population.

The researcher said that at this level of the pandemic “the health of Mexico City must be of national interest.”

Although he said that the fatality rate is lower than other entities, this is because the largest hospital complex in the country is located here.

He added that if those generated in the suburban municipalities of the state of Mexico, Puebla, Morelos and Hidalgo are added to the cases of contagion, the metropolitan area contributes 45 percent of the total epidemic.

When referring to the economic reopening, he said that the level of infections could worsen depending on the pace of opening. “It could be irreversible due to the pressures of business owners and providers of various services, both formal and informal in the absence of support of all kinds.”

Information from: https://www.diariodequeretaro.com.mx/mexico/sociedad/mexico-frenara-contagios-hasta-octubre-de-2022-uam-pandemia-coronavirus-covid-19-vacunas-6326321.html