The Ministry of Health (SSa) reported this Thursday, June 18 that the accumulated COVID-19 infections are 165,455, adding 5,662 new cases today. Furthermore, since the beginning of the epidemic, Mexico has suffered 19,747 fatalities, with 667 new deaths added today.
It’s important to remember that the Federal Government of Mexico only reports COVID-19 cases diagnoses in the public healthcare system, private hospitals and laboratories are not included in federal data.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico has plunged the national economy into a deep crisis and in the event that the Gross Domestic Product ( GDP ) falls more than 6%, as well as the unemployment rates, continue to rise, the country runs the risk of losing the progress made in the area of poverty between 2008 and 2018.
This is a warning issued by the executive secretary of the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy ( Coneval ), José Nabor Cruz Marcelo, in an interview with the newspaper El Universal, where he also stressed that this health emergency will put 10-millions more people into poverty in Mexico.
There has already been a reduction of three percentage points in extreme poverty, so “we do run the risk that these advances could be stopped or, even, lose a percentage of them,” he said, and then explain that the most affected sectors will be related to food lag and social security.
He highlighted that the deficiencies in this field are the product of the informality that has permeated the country over the years “and there will surely be an increase in informal jobs, due to the loss of jobs” during this period, he explained.
In the midst of this crisis, some of the sectors that could suffer most significantly from the impacts of inequality and poverty, said Nabor Cruz, will be women, indigenous communities throughout the nation, as well as minors.
Chancellor Marcelo Ebrard had already raised this possibility during the virtual conservatory “Human Rights of Women: Challenges before COVID-19”, organized by the Senate of Mexico a few days ago, although his forecast was not only reserved for Mexico, but the entire Latin American region.
“It is the most serious (crisis) that we have experienced in our generation, already in progress, due to an uncertain result. We see that in the tension generated by the economic and social situation is being widened poverty rapidly. I am sorry to tell you that we are going to lose what little we have made, at least in Latin America, in recent years in terms of poverty,” said the official.
