Last week the Mexican government announced that its inoculation program - one of the most ambitious in Latin America - had essentially come to a standstill. The country of 128 million people has received just 766,350 doses of vaccine, all produced by Pfizer-BioNTech.
That figure was supposed to hit 1.5 million by the end of the month. Mexican officials have described the delay as a minor setback and said shipments from Pfizer are expected to resume Feb. 15. 2021. “It is simply going to be temporarily postponed,” said Mexico’s undersecretary of health, Dr. Hugo López-Gatell, who is leading the nation’s pandemic response.
Officials here said they have already made deals to purchase enough vaccine to inoculate the entire country. They have signed agreements with Pfizer, China’s CanSino Biologics and the British company AstraZeneca to purchase enough vaccine for 128 million people. They are also trying to line up enough of the Sputnik V vaccine from Russia for 12 million more. 

 

In November, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, urged Mexico’s leaders be serious about the coronavirus and set examples for its citizens, saying that “Mexico is in bad shape” with the pandemic. A new set of rules requiring all travelers entering the US by sea, air or land to show proof of a recent negative coronavirus test and self-quarantine or self-isolate after entry.

Between the night of Thursday 14 and the afternoon of this January 17, 471 new cases of Coronavirus and 18 deaths were registered, of which 10 were in La Paz; another 377 people recovered, according to the count issued by the Ministry of Health (SSA).
The cumulative total reached 20,410 confirmed cases from the end of March to date; This figure includes 908 deaths, as well as 17,742 recovered and 1,760 patients in their active phase.
La Paz was the municipality with the highest number of recent deaths, adding 10 to its figure, which reaches 410 deaths; Similarly, 198 new cases were detected, leaving 957 active. Those recovered reached 8,618, of which 122 are extra.

 

On the other hand, Comondú, there were 4 extra deaths, leaving 100 deaths in the municipality; in addition, 49 people were discharged, being 1,261 so far. Assets number 142, of which 39 are recent.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell informed that within 15 days - by late March - Mexico could enter the second stage, community transmission, with which there could be hundreds of COVID-19 coronavirus cases which would need different control measures.
López-Gatell asserted that for now, Mexico remains on stage one, with few imported cases; nevertheless, international airports receiving flights from China or from the 10 countries with active COVID-19 transmission will experience intensified screening through the monitoring of passengers’ temperature and other symptoms.

The second stage, however, would present hundreds of cases and need different control measures.

Mexico’s low, barely budging count of confirmed #coronavirus cases is raising concern about the adequacy of testing in the country and whether the government is doing enough to prepare for an epidemic. As of Tuesday, only eight cases of Covid-19 had been confirmed since the first was reported Feb. 28 and Mexico was monitoring 37 possible cases.
By comparison, Brazil, where the first case was confirmed two days before Mexico’s, confirmed 37 cases and suspected another 876. On Wednesday evening, Mexico’s Health Ministry said the number of confirmed cases had reached 12. Yesterday, the outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, as worldwide cases topped 120,000 and deaths exceeded 4,300. Countries still have a chance to alter the course of the pandemic, the WHO said, urging governments to step up containment efforts through testing, tracing and isolating.

As of Tuesday night, the Mexican Health Ministry said it had performed 278 tests. “I’m worried about the lack of diagnostic testing,” said Francisco Moreno, infectious disease specialist and head of Internal Medicine at ABC Hospital in Mexico City. “If Mexico has undetected cases circulating, the spread of the disease is going to be brutal.”