Mexico has the worst mortality figures in the OECD as a result of Covid

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Mexico also stands out for being the third country as of November 1 with the third-lowest vaccination rate in the OECD.

Mexico has the worst mortality figures in the OECD since the Covid-19 pandemic began at the beginning of 2020, to the point that the increase in the number of deaths triples the average registered in the organization.

In its biennial health report published this Tuesday, and which this time focuses on the impact of the coronavirus, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) points out that the pandemic has directly and indirectly caused between 2020 and the first mid-2021 an average increase in mortality of 16% compared to the previous five years.

In Mexico, however, the rise was 54.8%. In fact, there have been practically 4,500 deaths there for every million inhabitants more than could be expected if the pandemic had not erupted compared to just 2,000 in the organization as a whole.

The 290,000 deaths officially attributed to Covid-19 in that country, in any case, mean less than 2,000 deaths per million inhabitants, a contrast that, according to Efe Federico Guanais, one of the authors of the report, is explained because in Mexico far fewer tests are done.

In other words, there is a significant part of the deaths that have occurred since 2020 are also due to the coronavirus, although they have not been detected as such.

Mexico also stands out for being the third country as of November 1 with the third-lowest vaccination rate, with 47% of the population immunized, compared to 65% on average in the 37 member states for which there is data.

Its relative position has declined in recent months, since at the beginning of July it was ranked sixth from the bottom, which illustrates the slowness of the vaccination campaign, which, as the organization recalls, is allowing to clearly reduce the impact of the epidemic in terms of hospitalizations and deaths.

Guanais points out that Latin America taken as a whole “if it is not the most affected, it is one of the regions of the world most affected” by the coronavirus since the epidemic spread at the beginning of 2020, with other countries equally heavily hit, such as Peru or Brazil.

Among those belonging to the OECD, Colombia has also been seriously shaken, where global mortality rose by 37.8% in a year and a half until June 2021 when compared to the reference period from 2015 to 2019.

Colombia has, in fact, the lowest vaccination coverage rate of all the member countries, since only 42% of its inhabitants had received the full schedule at the beginning of November.

A situation that contrasts with that of Chile, where 79% of the population had already been immunized on the same date, the third-highest percentage in the entire OECD.

In Chile, global mortality has risen 25.7% since the Covid-19 crisis began, that is, more than the average.

Another very different situation is that of Costa Rica, which is one of the OECD members that has been less badly off so far from the pandemic. In 2020 their life expectancy even increased by 0.2 years to 80.7 years, above the average.

And that its vaccination rate, 54%, is eleven percentage points below the organization as a whole. 

Source: efe.com

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