Coronavirus is spreading more quickly across Mexico than at any other time in the pandemic.
Active coronavirus cases in Yucatán rose by 43% in one week after the dreaded post-holiday surge in contagions began. The total number of patients battling COVID-19 was 898 on Monday after 269 tested positive for coronavirus in seven days.
New infections on Monday totaled 109, bringing to 27,600 the number of cases found in Yucatán since March. Five men and three women, between 57 to 84, perished.
Most new cases were in Mérida, at 109. Another nine were in Valladolid, eight in Peto, two in Ticul, Tinum and Yaxkabá; and one in Chichimilá, Kanasín, Motul, Progreso, San Felipe, Tekax and Tizimín. A “foreigner,” from somewhere outside Yucatán, also tested positive.
Hospitalizations have increased 47% in two weeks, and the field hospital set up in the Siglo XXI convention center remains on standby for overflow patients, said Gov. Mauricio Vila Dosal. Private hospitals have all the coronavirus patients they can take, so new admissions are restricted to the public medical centers.
Across Mexico
The infections mirror a national crisis. Coronavirus is spreading more quickly in Mexico than at any other time in the pandemic.
The federal health ministry reported 107,945 new cases the first 10 days of January, including a record 16,105 cases on Saturday.
Holiday celebrations and relaxed protocols were to blame, said Malaquías López, a public health professor at the National Autonomous University and spokesperson for the university’s COVID-19 commission.
Deaths have also increased at a rapid pace, up by 9.5% so far this month compared to the final 10 days of 2020.
The more contagious strain of the coronavirus made its way to Mexico. The Tamaulipas Health Ministry said it was detected in a 56-year-old British national who was recently in the United Kingdom.
Jesús Ramírez, President Manuel Andrés López Obrador’s spokesman, said Sunday that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I am in good health but I’ll be working from home following all the sanitary protocols,” he wrote on Twitter, two days after being seen passing a microphone to the president while neither wore a face mask. AMLO has not gone into isolation despite the contact.
Source: SSY, Diario de Yucatán
