COVID made 2020 the year with the most deaths in the history of Mexico

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With the coronavirus pandemic, in the first 9 months of 2020 Mexico exceeded the number of deaths for one year in its entire history, registering 753 thousand deaths, according to official data.

208 thousand deaths that occurred between April 1 and September 30 – the period of the pandemic – are considered additional deaths to those expected, according to the trend.

Although a number of “expected” deaths occur in any region according to their comorbidities, in an “atypical” situation such as a war or, in this case, a pandemic, the statistics change; therefore, more deaths occur than in previous years.

To determine the number of “excess” deaths that occurred in the context of this pandemic in Mexico, Animal Político and Proyecto Li carry out the calculation of excess mortality, that is, calculate the deaths in addition to those expected for this year, taking the number of deaths registered in the National Population Registry (RENAPO) and state civil registries.

This number is obtained by comparing the deaths that occurred between April and September 2020 with the same period in 2019, data obtained through more than 300 transparency requests during the last six months.

Because the pandemic began at different times in the states, the occurrence of deaths was not the same in all cases. For example, Baja California, Chihuahua, Mexico City, the State of Mexico, and Morelos were the entities that had the highest record of deaths in May.

Mexico City, the state with the highest number of infections, decreased the number of deaths in the months following May and for this cut from April 1 to September 30 it registers 34 thousand 475 additional deaths, which represents 81% more than in 2019.

In Chiapas and Puebla, more deaths occurred in June. In July, during the deconfinement, the highest number of deaths was recorded in Baja California Sur, Campeche, Coahuila, Colima, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Nuevo León, Oaxaca, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí , Sinaloa, Sonora, Tabasco, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and Tlaxcala.

In virtually all states, additional deaths continued to decline during August; in September the steep decline did not continue, but reached a kind of plateau.

Chiapas is such an example. While the highest record of excess deaths was in June with more than 7 thousand, for the following months it had a considerable decrease until reaching September, barely exceeding 2,000 additional deaths.

Durango, which had the highest record of additional deaths in July, and maintained a slight decrease in August and September, adds 1,151 more deaths until this October 30 and is the first state to return to a red light this November 2 to restrict non-essential activities again due to the increase in contagion.

In Chihuahua, which also went to a red light this month due to the 70% occupancy of general beds in its hospitals on November 1, added 4,980 additional deaths between April 1 and September 30. The highest number of deaths occurred in May, but began to decline in the following months.

Baja California also had a pronounced decline in June and September and in the pandemic period it has 7,940 excess deaths.

The RENAPO database is used to calculate excess mortality, but in states where the data are not consistent, local civil registries are used.

Source: Animal Político

Mexico Daily Post