Undersecretary of Health estimates almost 27,000 cases of coronavirus in Mexico.

MEXICO (Health Ministry) – Hugo López-Gatell said that the epidemic is eight times bigger, according to estimates by the Health Ministry based on the “sentinel model.” That means that of the more than 3,000 cases presented last night, the Health Ministry estimates that there are 26,519 cases of coronavirus within the Mexican population, according to its sentinel model.

Undersecretary Lopez-Gatell explained that based on this model, in Mexico, there would be an estimated 3,181 confirmed cases. The unregistered infections have not reached the consultation stage but are taken into account by the Mexican government for the containment plans.

“I make a multiplication that allows me for each confirmed case of COVID-19 how many there are in the population that I did not see. Because they did not arrive at the consultation, etcetera, and that’s finally 26,519 cases. Of the 3,181 that we have just reported, others did not arrive at the consultation, but these methods allow us to say with reasonable certainty: they are there”. Lopez-Gatell said the epidemic is eight times larger than the number of positive cases that have been counted, based on the estimates that serve as a sample of the figure released.

He also said that the model used to estimate the number of cases is accurate because the World Health Organization endorsed it, the Panamerican Health Organization and the U.S. Center for Disease Control, and not only applies to Mexico but could mean the reality of other nations.

“We explicitly recognize that we have 26,000 cases. In any other country that only has the observed cases, we also have to correct for a similar number, 10 or 12 unobserved cases for each. And countries with huge epidemics would also have to multiply those cases by a similar factor.” For example, he indicated that a country with 300,000 observed and laboratory-tested cases could have up to 3 million infections.

Each case would mean another 10 or 12 that have not been sampled, but are considered part of the health actions, Gatell said. The 26,519 cases represent 8.33 cases per inhabitant with corroborated contagion.