On 6 August Mexico officially passed 50,000 fatalities caused by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
Analysis:
Just four-and-a-half months ago, as the vast majority of Latin American countries were adopting drastic measures in a bid to contain Covid-19, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bucked the trend, continuing to shake hands with and embrace supporters, in defiance of his own government’s health advice. “It’s a global issue but when it comes to Mexico I don’t feel like we’ll have big problems. That’s my prognosis. Adversity and pandemics are going to do nothing to us”, he said on 18 March, the same day on which Mexico confirmed its first death from Covid-19. Mexico is now only the third country in the world with in excess of 50,000 confirmed fatalities from the virus, behind the US and Brazil, whose presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro adopted a similarly cavalier attitude towards the pandemic.
- Health authorities yesterday confirmed that in the previous 24 hours, 819 people had died from Covid-19, bringing the national total to 50,517. The number of confirmed cases grew by 6,590, to a total of 462,690. There are a further 87,973 suspected cases.
- The deputy health minister, Hugo López-Gatell, an epidemiologist López Obrador appointed to head the country’s public health strategy, said that estimated fatalities stood at 52,479. Mexico lies fourth in the region in terms of per capita fatalities, with 40 per 100,000 inhabitants, behind Peru (65.25 per 100,000), Chile (54.93), and Brazil (46.61).
- López Obrador’s confidence that Mexico would somehow be less affected by Covid-19 than other countries now looks especially misplaced, as it has emerged that obesity significantly increases the risk of severe symptoms. Some 65% of Mexicans are overweight, and 30% of the population is obese—the second highest rate in the world, after the US.
Looking Ahead: The main opposition Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) is ramping up the pressure on the government, demanding López-Gatell’s resignation and accusing both him and López Obrador on 5 August of being “criminally complicit” in the deaths of thousands of people, as a result of a flawed strategy in response to Covid-19.