Mexico’s health ministry on Monday reported 3,541 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection and 320 additional fatalities, bringing the total in the country to 563,705 cases and 60,800 deaths.
The government has said the real number of infected people is likely significantly higher than the confirmed cases.
José Luis Alomía Zegarra, director of Epidemiology at the federal level, pointed out that an estimated 36,697 (6%) patients presented symptoms in the last fourteen days, which represents people who potentially contribute to the transmission of the virus.
From week 32 to 33 there was a decrease of 8% in estimated cases (sum of confirmed and suspected infections) nationwide, accounting for 597,353. Although infections have seen an 8% decrease in the past week, testing has seen a 40% decrease nationwide. Currently, Mexico is averaging 7,000 coronavirus tests nationwide.
Mexico also reported a 43% positivity rate.
The undersecretary acknowledged that Mexico is the country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ( OECD ) that performs the least tests to detect COVID-19, because its epidemiological surveillance model is based on the recognition of symptoms and not interested in finding asymptomatic people who are the main drivers of the pandemic.
