Photo: David de la Paz/Xinhua

XINHUA

Due in large part to a government national vaccination campaign, while the incidence of covid-19 cases in the United States has tripled over the last two weeks, in Mexico they have been on the decline for the last four months, Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday, May 17.

While there have been some “slight variations” in case numbers over the past three weeks, there is an overall downward trend in infections, López-Gatell told reporters at a press conference.

According to Mexican government statistics, nearly 87.3 million Mexicans out of a total population of 126 million have been vaccinated, he said, although some with only partial vaccine protocols.

Notwithstanding, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of Wednesday, only 68 percent of the Mexican population had received at least one covid-19 vaccine and 63 percent were fully vaccinated, with just 42 percent had received a booster, and some of the medications used in Mexico have still not received WHO approval.

The WHO also reported that there have been an average of 970 cases per day in Mexico over the last week, representing a 17 percent increase from the average two weeks ago.

Still deaths have decreased by 26 percent to just over one death per day, and while admitting that there has been some “slight variations” in case numbers over the past three weeks, López-Gatell said that there is an overall downward trend in the number of infections.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 1 in 22 Mexicans have been infected, representing a total of 5,752,441 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, although most medical experts believe that the number is much higher because of poor reporting and limited testing.