Mexico remains the worst country during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an updated analysis by the Bloomberg news agency.
Monthly since November, Bloomberg has evaluated 53 countries with savings of more than $ 200 billion to determine where the virus has been treated most effectively with the least amount of disruption to business and society.
It uses 10 different indicators to assess the status of the coronavirus in individual countries, including the growth of virus cases, the overall mortality rate, the ability to test, the capacity of the local health system, the impact of virus-related restrictions on economy and freedom of movement.
For its latest analysis – which was published on Monday – Bloomberg presented an 11th indicator to assess each country’s progress in administering the Covid-19 vaccines.
The news agency uses the various indicators to calculate a “Covid resilience” score for each country.
Mexico ranked 53rd in the November and December analysis and maintained this unenviable position in the January evaluation. Not only that, your score has decreased.
Covid’s resilience score was just 30.8 out of 100, down 6.8 points from November. The second worst ranked country – South Africa – scored seven points above Mexico.
Mexico has the highest lethality rate among 53 countries, with a rate of 7.5 deaths per 100 confirmed cases last month. (The overall fatality rate in Mexico is 8.5, the highest among the 20 countries currently most affected by Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University.)
It also has the highest positivity rate, with 41.1% of Covid-19 tests showing positive results.
“A high rate of positive tests indicates that the government is testing only the sickest patients and there are high levels of undetected infection in the community,” said Bloomberg.
The federal government, which last year described mass testing as useless and expensive, was widely criticized for failing to test further.
Other indicators that contributed to Mexico’s score included 287 cases per 100,000 inhabitants last month; 1,156 deaths of Covid-19 per 1 million inhabitants; 0.43 vaccine doses administered by 100 people; and a GDP growth forecast in 2021 of 3.5%.
Bloomberg said Mexico has vaccine agreements to cover 119% of Mexico’s population (just over 126 million, according to the recently released census results), but supply is currently extremely limited.
In comparison, Canada and the United Kingdom have vaccine agreements to cover more than 300% of their populations, while New Zealand and Australia have agreements to cover more than double the number of residents.
New Zealand, which has been extremely successful in controlling the coronavirus, was rated by Bloomberg as the best place to be during the pandemic, with a Covid resilience score of 76.8. Singapore came in second, followed by Australia, Taiwan, China, Norway, Finland, Japan, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
The North American trade partners in Mexico, Canada and the United States, ranked 13th and 35th, respectively.
The 10 lowest ranked countries were, in order, Mexico, South Africa, Colombia, Czech Republic, Argentina, Nigeria, Egypt, Brazil, Pakistan and Iran.
Bloomberg acknowledged that some countries have started vaccinating citizens against Covid-19, but said that “the largest global vaccination campaign in memory has not yet reached a point where it is causing significant changes in … [the] Covid resilience rating. “
“The speed with which vaccinations can reduce fatalities and the effectiveness with which they will be against new variants of rapid spread will be the main focus in February, when we will update Covid’s resilience rating again,” said the news agency.
Noting the poor performance of the United States, Brazil and Mexico in combating the pandemic, Bloomberg said that former US President Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and President López Obrador – who announced on Sunday that he had tested positive for Covid-19 – all “repeatedly minimized the threat of coronavirus. “
Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the Washington DC study center, the Wilson Center, said the “arrogant” leadership approach in some Latin American countries, in addition to the lack of social safety nets and public health systems strong, aggravated the coronavirus crisis in the region.
Bloomberg noted that Latin America is the most urbanized region in the world and that social distance is difficult for many people because they live in conditions of overcrowding.
“The high proportion of people who depend on informal work and daily wages means that few are willing to stay at home,” he added.
The news agency also said that data from the International Monetary Fund show that most countries in Latin America will not return to pre-pandemic growth levels until 2023 and per capita income will not recover until 2025, which is “later than than anywhere else. “
On an annual basis, Mexico’s economy fell by almost 20% in the second quarter of 2020 and 8.6% in the third quarter.
Coronavirus restrictions continue to act as a hand brake on the economy across Mexico, especially in the 10 states currently painted with maximum risk red on the federal government’s road sign map. Mexico City, an economic powerhouse, is among the entities facing red light restrictions.
A relaxation of restrictions in the capital and in several other states seems unlikely in the short term, as Mexico faces the worst month of the pandemic in terms of new cases and deaths from Covid-19. More than 88% of general care hospital beds in Mexico City are currently occupied by patients with coronavirus.
The national death toll exceeded 150,000 on Monday, with an additional 659 reported deaths and now stands at 150,273, the fourth largest total in the world.
The number of cumulative cases rose to 1.77 million on Monday, with 8,521 new cases registered. Mexico ranks 13th in the world in number of cases, despite the low rate of testing here.
Mexico News Daily