The fourth wave is being left behind

José Aurelio Granados Alcantar
Ph.D. in Regional Development and Territorial Planning

After five weeks of steady decline in the number of cases, the fourth wave is now behind us with a higher number of infections but fewer deaths from the coronavirus (See Graph 1). These indicators give us hope that the end of the pandemic is near. However, we must be cautious, there are circumstances that at least indicate that the pandemic is here to stay.

Asian countries are currently facing outbreaks of COVID, in Hong Kong and China the levels of transmission are the highest of the entire pandemic and new variants continue to appear in the world, although without producing any epidemiological change, nor any change in severity so far. This is why the World Health Organization (WHO) does not yet consider it feasible to declare the end of the pandemic.

According to the Ministry of Health in the state of Hidalgo, on March 11 there were 544 people with the active virus throughout the territory; these data were similar to those registered during the first days of January of this year. In the last two weeks, 1,740 cases have been recorded from the week of February 27 to March 5 and from March 6 to 12 there were 1,172 infections. Deaths are decreasing but are still far from the levels of before the fourth wave, 33 deaths due to the coronavirus from February 27 to March 5 and 19 in the week of March 6 to 12.

But as the days go by, deaths are going to decrease even more as General Bed Occupancy in the entity is at 9.4%, but Ventilator Bed Occupancy and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Ventilator Bed Occupancy are unoccupied as of March 12. This situation is not as favorable in other entities; for example, Querétaro has 100% Occupancy of Ventilator Beds in ICU, a reminder that transmission curves, as in regions or countries, do not occur with the same intensity in space or time.