Mexico is not running out of beds, but of death certificates

Aditi Premjit 8th September, 2020

First responders transport a woman with respiratory problems in Tijuana (Source: Guillermo Arias/AFP via Getty Images)

With the outbreak of the COVID-19, one of the worst-hit countries—Mexico—has announced that some states have officially run out of death certificates. According to Fox News, the Government of states Baja California, Mexico City, and the State of Mexico announced that they had started running out of death certificates in late August due to the insurmountable number of people who have been hit by the pandemic.

As reported by Reuters, Mexico’s deputy health minister Dr Hugo Lopez Gatell said that the government has ordered 11 lakh additional death certificates that are printed and being distributed to certain states. Speaking in a press conference on the 5th of September, Dr Hugo also said that some states, including Mexico state, were out of death certificates. Authorities had been working for the past two to three weeks to redistribute them from areas with larger stocks, he added. These new certificates are being made with special characteristics to avoid falsification of the same which is seen to be practiced in the country recently.

Funerals are being delayed because of the lack of death certificates, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although the World Health organisation had recently stated that Mexico’s cases are under-recognised; due to limited testing it still is the fourth largest COVID impacted country in the world with 6,34,023 cases and 67,558 deaths as of 7th September 2020.

Cases are now increasing at a steep rate uncontrollably, according to official Mexico reports. This data report from the National Centre for Preventive Programs and Disease Control takes into account the number of deaths without regard to the cause. The study was conducted across 24 states and excluded eight, including Chiapas, Durango, Nayarit, and Yucatan. People between the ages of 45 and 65 had the highest percentage of excess mortality. Below 20 years old, the excess mortality was zero.

Mexico is currently working on producing their own COVID-19 vaccines and has said that it would be ready by next spring, as reported by Fox News. Mexico will take part in clinical trials of Italian and Russian vaccines, and has also struck a deal to produce pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca Plc’s (AZN.L) vaccine.

(Sources: Fox News, Bloomberg, Reuters, Worldometers)

Edited by Varun Vyas Hebbalalu