Positive Cases Increase 6.1 percent in 24 Hours

Ministry of Health reported 193 new deaths from COVID-19 and 1,938 more positive cases in the last 24 hours, representing a 6.1 percent increase in Mexico’s total number of infections. Of the 33,460 total positive cases recorded 8,283 are active, or with symptoms in the last 14 days.

Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía explained that 73,801 people have tested negative for the virus of 128,148 studied so far. Mexico City, State of Mexico and Tabasco still lead states in the number of active cases. Alomía said that, according to Johns Hopkins University, global infections have broken the 4 million barrier.

As of Saturday, May 9

1,938     new cases (from yesterday)

33,460   confirmed cases nationwide

20,887   under investigation

3,353     deaths

Half million jobs lost in April

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador reported that half million jobs were lost in April due to the COVID-19 epidemic and that the ongoing crisis is the result of failure of the neoliberal model, and not the pandemic. The official figure on jobs will be announced next Tuesday and one day later the government will present the reopening plan. “We are going to make the announcement next week, maybe on Wednesday, on the plan for the economic, social and cultural reopening. This is the end of quarantine. We are going to restart very carefully following sanitary measures, so things don’t get complicated,” he said in a video message. The president said that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is forecasting a 6.6 percent contraction for the Mexican GDP this year, a similar figure for most of the countries, and that the government will distribute over MX$132 billion through social programs between May and July.

Hospitals close to saturation

Most of the public and private hospitals admitting COVID-19 patients in Mexico City and neighboring municipalities are close to saturation, according to the city’s government and hospitals reports, saysEl Economista. Of the 64 hospitals in the health system operating in the metropolitan area, 26 were reported without capacity, 16 were limited and 22 still had space as of Saturday, according to a Mexico City government data. The National Association of Private Hospitals, which has 1,052 beds and 363 intensive care spaces for COVID-19 patients, reported that all beds are occupied in six states, including Mexico City.

Army distributes pantries

To support state governments as part of the DN-III Plan last week the Mexican army distributed 42,890 food parcels in Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Guerrero, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Yucatán, reported the Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA).

2,524 Mexicans stranded

So far there are 2,524 Mexicans stranded around the world Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) spokesman Roberto Velasco said. He also announced that 11,896 people have been repatriated to Mexico so far. “Yesterday we received 157 people from Chile, Belize, Morocco and Turkey. A further 1,376 people continue in places without flight availability,” he tweeted.