Two years after the start of the pandemic, consolidated decline of the fourth wave of infections in Hidalgo

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

Two years after the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a sustained decrease of a fourth period of transmission. During this time, 87,690 people from Hidalgo have been infected with the coronavirus and, unfortunately, 8,119 people have died. It has been recognized that this figure is underestimated because the number of infections is much higher than those registered and the authorities themselves recognize that in these two years, it has not been possible to keep a reliable record of deaths, for various reasons, but the main one has been that at the height of the pandemic, health services have been overwhelmed.

This fact can be observed by analyzing the following figures: if by December 31, 2021 in the daily technical communiqués it is recognized that in Hidalgo there were 7,871 deaths due to COVID and if the Ministry of Health calculated an excess of deaths from 2020 to 2021 of 13,871, the difference between the recognized deaths due to coronavirus and the excess mortality is 5,910 people (See Table 1). Although it is not possible to state categorically that all these people died from the consequences of the virus, we can suspect that some of them died from these causes.

Table 1. Hidalgo. Summary 2020-2021 (Date of update January 17, 2021)

Source: Taken from Excess Mortality in Mexico. https://coronavirus.gob.mx/exceso-de-mortalidad-en-mexico/

In the last two weeks, the decrease in the number of infections continued; during the week of February 13-19, 2,295 infections were recorded, a decrease of 18.2% compared to the previous week, February 6-12. In the last week, February 20-26, the intensity of infections decreased by only 11.4%, since 2,32 thousand 32 cases of coronavirus were counted. The current levels of virus transmission are already similar to those recorded in August with the third wave and if the decrease in infections continues in the coming weeks, the levels of the second wave will be reached (See Graph 1).

Hidalgo continues to be the third entity with the highest occupancy of general hospital beds at the national level; this indicator stood at 31.5% on February 26, less than 21 points compared to 53.14% on February 12. There is also a decrease in the other indicators, 18.8% of the beds with ventilator are occupied and no occupancy was registered in the beds with ventilator in intensive care (See IRAG Network Information System https://www.gits.igg.unam.mx/red-irag-dashboard/reviewHome).

With these indicators, it is very likely that next Friday, March 4, Hidalgo will be placed in the epidemiological traffic light in green color. Although the decrease in hospitalizations is good news, deaths continue, in this last week (from February 20 to 26) 53 people died as a result of coronavirus; there is a slight decrease, since the previous week, from February 6 to 12, there were 61 deaths.