According to a study conducted by data scientists, Sarahí Aguilar and Moisés Arispe, published in Nexos, Mexico City actually experienced 7,198 deaths due to COVID-19, although the government is only reporting 2,139 during the two months being investigated, showing a gap between the government’s reporting and death certificates in the Civil Registry.
The figure by the Civil Registry is three times higher than the number of the Directorate, and the daily deaths curve is “substantially higher” than the official one. However, as the study authors acknowledge, this discrepancy was explicitly anticipated by federal authorities.
This data comes from the analysis of 20,900 death certificates issued by courts corresponding to April and May, the months of greatest activity of the pandemic.
Generally speaking, COVID-19 deaths are registered as atypical pneumonia, viral pneumonia, and respiratory failure. According to the study, nine out of 10 reports related to “viral pneumonia” and four out of 10 related to “atypical pneumonia” all of which were linked to COVID-19 infected patience.
The month with the most registered deaths was May, with 12,228 compared to 8,672 in April. Of this total, 1,980 deaths in April and 5,218 in May are related to COVID-19.
May 18 would be the date with the highest death record, so it is established as the maximum point of the curve only in the period analyzed.
While this review of death certificates is only taken place in Mexico City, other reports of under-reporting and misreporting COVID-19 cases and deaths throughout Mexico have been made.
