The government quietly released the data in a report on Saturday, Marche 27, which linked 294,287 deaths to Covid-19 between the beginning of the pandemic and February 14.
MEXICO CITY (El Universal) – The Mexican government admitted on Saturday that the confirmed death toll from the coronavirus pandemic had exceeded 321,000 people, almost 60% more than the official figure confirmed by diagnostic tests 201,429. Read the report here:
Mexico does few diagnostic tests, and as hospitals were overwhelmed, many Mexicans died at home without being tested. The only way to get a clear picture is to review excess mortality and death certificates.
The government quietly released the data in a report on Saturday, which linked 294,287 deaths to Covid-19 between the start of the pandemic and February 14. Since February 15, there have been another 26,772 deaths confirmed with diagnostic tests.
The new figure would be on par with Brazil, which now has the second-highest number of deaths behind the United States. But Mexico’s population, 126 million people, is much smaller than those two countries.
The new report also confirms the lethality of Mexico’s second wave of infections in January. At the end of December, estimates of excess mortality were 220,000 deaths related to Covid-19 in Mexico. That number grew by some 75,000 people in just a month and a half.
Also striking was the volume of total excess mortality since the beginning of the pandemic, some 417,000. Excess mortality is determined by comparing deaths in a given year with those that would have been expected based on data from previous years.
An analysis of death certificates found that about 70.5% of excess mortality was related to Covid-19, often because it was listed on the certificates as a factor or possible cause of death. But some experts say Covid-19 may have contributed to many other deaths because many people were unable to receive treatment for other illnesses because hospitals were overwhelmed.
Former President Felipe Calderon tweeted Saturday that “more than 400,000 Mexicans have died above the average of previous years (…). Probably the highest figure in the world”.