Mexico acknowledges COVID-19 cases will increase, but staying home much longer isn’t desirable

The Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, acknowledged this afternoon from the National Palace that there will be a resurgence of COVID-19 infections when mobility is reactivated, and despite this, it is impossible to continue under confinement.

At the afternoon conference, the official recalled that the national social distancing order is eight days from expiring, and that the phase called “new normality ” begins on June 1st, made up of a series of measures that will be carried out in public spaces.

He pointed out that citizens must follow sanitary measures despite the end of the contingency, since the coronavirus remains latent and there is no cure or vaccine to combat it.

“Any population at the time that mobility increases, has the greater probability of having greater contagions and this is proportional, the greater the mobility and the greater number of people moving in the public space, the greater the resurgence of contagions,” said López- Gatell.

The official referred to the experience that other countries have had in reopening their economic activities, who have also had flare-ups, pointing out that Mexico should follow their example, and start doing their own careful return.

However, most countries have enacted reopenings as cases began to decline, with the exception of the United States. Mexico”s reopening coincides with the same time period in which Mexico is experiencing an upward trend in the spread of the virus.

The Undersecretary said that for this reason, the return to activities will be staggered and under careful supervision so that as soon as the authorities notice an abrupt change in infections, mobility will again be reduced to care for the population.

With the COVID-19 incubation period being up to 14-days, it could be two weeks of rapid spreading before an abrupt change in infections could be documented.

Nationally, Mexico registered a new record of infections on Saturday with 3,329 new cases confirmed.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador compared the number of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic with that of other countries and called the press “fools who want the country to do poorly,” taking a page from U.S. President, Donald Trump.

He noted that preventive measures of healthy distance managed to flatten the curve and prevent more deaths, although there has not been any flattening of infections in Mexico, on the contrary, new records of infections have been recorded almost daily in the last week.

“We are in the highest in the Valley of Mexico, but we are going to start descending. These days are going to be the most difficult, the most painful, especially due to the deaths,” said the president, the same statement he made last month.