Mexico City could reach more than 4 million Covid-19 infections

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A researcher from UNAM predicts that 20% of the population will become infected with COVID-19 in CDMX and the surrounding municipalities.

Gustavo Cruz, a member of the Institute for Research in Applied Mathematics and Systems (IIMAS) of the UNAM, estimates that around 20-25% of the inhabitants of the Valley of Mexico, that is, between 4 and 5 million people, will be infected by COVID-19.

“The scenarios given by some health systems of up to 70% of the infected population, it seems to me is when they count once the outbreak is over, all of which were in total (…) in our calculations the maximum point is reached between 20 and 25% ”, he points out.

Based on a mathematical model, a group of UNAM scientists calculated an estimate of when the infectious outbreak would arrive in Mexico. Although this is not yet seen as such, because even when there are local infections typical of phase 2 of the epidemic, there is still no exponential growth in the cities.

In early March, this group – to which Gustavo Cruz belongs – warned that an outbreak of COVID-19 cases would begin in the country in the middle of this month. This was one of the reasons why UNAM considered taking stricter measures of social distancing and canceling massive events, then other universities followed, and later the federal government.

You have to be careful, because that gives very large numbers, in Mexico City that gives between 4 and 5 million, but the vast majority of these people will never realize that they were infected because they will be asymptomatic.

The scientist who also collaborated in 2009, during the AH1N1 influenza outbreak, explains that the moment in which this exponential rise in cases is generated is quite random, but considers that it will occur in a few days, but when the exponential rise begins, and in approximately four weeks the maximum will be reached, this would be approximately April 25.

“This part is more random. At what point an exponential outbreak is already clearly seen and once this exponential outbreak starts, then in about four weeks the maximum would occur, ”he says.

But this would not be the same for all states, so far in Mexico City, it is the only place where community contagions have been registered, while Quintana Roo, Nuevo León and Jalisco, concentrate the largest number, but without local transmission, and in states, such as Tlaxcala, only a few cases are occurring.

Regarding the duration of the epidemic, the Undersecretary for Health Promotion and Prevention, Hugo López-Gatell, estimated that it could last until October. However, the UNAM scientist details that it will depend on when the outbreaks start CDMX or different cities because once this happens it will take around eight or nine weeks for it to calm down.

“If you count all the other states, then you do go to several months, but that counting the entire country, counting locally, it should be brief,” he says.

For this reason, the UNAM researcher considers that the actions should be staggered and not occur in a single cut across the country.

“It does not make sense, as many people ask, that all measures be implemented throughout the country, this does not make sense because the most severe restriction measures must be given when the outbreak begins in the different ones in the cities,” he points out.

The UNAM researcher states that in the 2009 epidemic, once the outbreak in Mexico City passed, it began to spread in other cities, so the important thing will be when this phenomenon is observed in some of the cities, and It is at this moment that the most restrictive measures must be put in place to avoid infections and saturate health systems.

To make the predictions, the group of scientists relied on a model known as McKendrick, created in 1927, which uses a system of equations to analyze how an infectious outbreak arises, its growth, when it reaches its maximum and how it then declines. , based on biological and social parameters.

Source: politica.expansion.mx

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