Mexican Health Officials Stop Sharing Coronavirus Case Estimates

Mexico’s top health officials are now avoiding the practice of estimating and announcing Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases to instead focus on hospital capacity.

During a nightly news conference, Mexico’s Undersecretary of Health Hugo Lopez Gatell released the most current figures that show 23,471 confirmed cases and 2,154 fatalities. Lopez Gatell also minimized the fact that as of April 11, his epidemiologists estimated Mexico had approximately 104,562 cases. The official did not give a current estimate.

Conferencia de Prensa: #COVID19 | 3 de mayo de 2020 #UnidosSaldremosAdelante https://t.co/LXQ8HHdDIr

— SALUD México (@SSalud_mx) May 3, 2020

In early April, Lopez Gatell explained that Mexico was not engaging in mass testing and would instead develop statistical models which multiplied the number of confirmed cases against a set factor. The factor for several weeks was announced as 8, however, this weekend, Lopez Gatell stated it was a more fluid equation without a standard factor.

During Sunday’s news conference, Lopez Gatell claimed that the estimated number of cases was no longer important and people should instead focus on available bed space in hospitals. Lopez Gatell said “not every person who tests positive for COVID-19 is a confirmed case.”

No toda persona que sale positiva a la prueba de #COVID19 es un caso confirmado, es decir, hay muchas personas que son portadores asintomáticos. #QuédateEnCasa pic.twitter.com/pGoIb44CpY

— SALUD México (@SSalud_mx) May 4, 2020

Lopez Gatell recently admitted that previous case figures from daily reports did not account for private hospital patients. In some states, the number of cases could almost double if private patients were included. States like Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas release their own numbers to reflect all hospitals and show nearly double that of the federal figures.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.