Health

Mexican gov’t: Unvaccinated make up 97 pct. of hospitalized Covid-19 patients

Mexico City, Aug 3 (EFE).- Unvaccinated individuals currently account for roughly 97 percent of Covid-19 hospitalizations amid Mexico’s third surge of that potentially deadly respiratory disease, the government’s coronavirus czar said Tuesday.

Around “97 percent of people who are hospitalized today for Covid have not been vaccinated. The remaining 3 percent are people who have some disease that causes major immuno-depression and which possibly is contributing to a lack of full vaccine effectiveness,” Hugo Lopez-Gatell said during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s regular morning press conference at Mexico City’s National Palace.

Mexico is currently immersed in a third wave of coronavirus infections and recently has been reporting more than 19,000 daily confirmed cases, levels not seen since the peak of the second wave in January.

But thanks to the mass vaccination of adults over the age of 60, the Covid-19 case fatality rate for that population has fallen from 40 percent to around 10 percent, Lopez-Gatell said.

“It’s extremely important to get vaccinated. Vaccination reduces the impact of Covid-19, reduces fatality rates and reduces hospitalization risk,” the epidemiologist said.

Mexico has reported nearly 2.9 million confirmed coronavirus cases and attributed around 241,300 fatalities to Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic, the fourth-highest death toll worldwide after the United States, Brazil and India.

The average occupancy rate of general inpatient beds and intensive-care-unit beds at Mexican hospitals stands at 48 percent and 39 percent, respectively, while the hospital-bed occupancy rate in Mexico City is 76 percent and several states are on red alert due to high hospitalization rates.

A total of 67.6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses have been administered nationwide and 25.8 million people – or 20.5 percent of Mexico’s 126 million inhabitants – have received a full two-dose vaccine series.

Lopez Obrador for his part urged the population to get vaccinated, particularly older adults who have not yet done so, adding that “it’s been shown that the vaccine saves lives.”

“We now have a new wave of infections, but fortunately the proportion of deaths is not the same. The number of people who regrettably are losing their lives is lower due to the vaccine,” the president said.

Authorities are carrying out a targeted vaccination program in northern municipalities aimed at achieving a rapid full reopening of the US-Mexico border, which has been partially closed since March 2020.

A total of 2.6 million Covid-19 vaccines have been administered to young adults between the ages of 18 and 39 in 45 municipalities across six northern border states, while 85.7 percent of the target population in that region has been immunized against the disease. EFE

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