Given the increase observed in the cases of COVID-19 in Mexico, the Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, pointed out that it would not be a surprise if the country faces a fifth wave in the coming weeks.
In a virtual press conference from Switzerland, where he traveled to participate in the meeting of the World Health Organization, the official warned that Mexico cannot yet declare the end of the pandemic and, on the contrary, the authorities are on alert for the increase in cases. He detailed that If the rebound reaches 20,000 infections, we would be talking about a fifth wave of the epidemic, But for now “it is early to make a prediction about whether these variations that we have had, effectively between 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 cases, are going to become the fifth wave or not.
“Although we have already had a very long period of recession in the COVID-19 epidemic, given that other countries are resurgent, it would not be surprising if in Mexico we also began to experience a rebound or a fifth wave of the disease,” he emphasized. .
He clarified that even when this new wave arrives, the population will be protected because the vaccine reduces serious illness and the risk of mortality, “but it also reduces the possibility of transmission if there is a sufficient volume of people who have complete immunity.”
He stressed that although the epidemic is not declared over, “The biological, epidemiological, and ecological characteristics of the virus suggest that it will behave in perpetuity like many respiratory viruses (…) the virus will never leave the human species, the virus will continue to be present,” with predictable cycles, in the season from October to March.
He recalled that since the beginning of the pandemic he said two things. “I said: ‘let’s prepare for a long epidemic’; I keep saying it, this epidemic had all the characteristics of behaving like a long epidemic, and long means not a few months, long means several years, and the scientific experience in public health is illustration regarding the influenza pandemic at the beginning of the 20th century”.
Meanwhile, a year and a half after the vaccination operation against the virus began for health personnel, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) indicated that it is appropriate to grant the suspension to private sector doctors who processed amparos to be vaccinated.
