MEXICO.- In Irving Marín’s family everyone was vaccinated against the coronavirus. That’s why they traveled from Mexico City to Playa del Carmen, in the Riviera Maya, to celebrate Christmas, the end of the year and the number birthday 50 of his mother along with uncles, cousins, boyfriends and close people.
The health authorities had warned of a fourth wave of infections for the winter, but they were confident. “Even I had already gotten covid once,” recalls Irving, a programmer of 27 years.
One night the youngest went out to have fun at a club. They sweated, drank and shared spaces with other people. In Mexico there are no official restrictions for businesses to remain closed. The epidemiological traffic light has been green, which means that there are no mobility restrictions.
“My girlfriend said that we had a high risk of contagion, but the rest of us trusted each other”.
Three days later, the four boys who went out to the disco began to have symptoms: cough, flu, body aches and headache. They got tested and they came back positive. That’s 10 days ago.
For Saturday 15 of last January, the Health authorities shared the daily technical report on the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the country, in which Irving and his family were included as part of the more than 4.3 million accumulated since the pandemic began.
Infections this season have risen to a daily average of 45,000 cases and continues to rise. In the last 27 hours were 47,000 new people who reported the symptom picture and 200 new deaths.
The Ministry of Health reported that in total since 2019 have died more than 227,000 people with COVID whose average age is 64 years old.
But, unlike previous waves of infections, this winter has not gotten out of control, hospitals have not been overwhelmed and therefore activities have not been restricted.
In Mexico City with more than 24 million inhabitants, currently the number of hospitalized by covid is just over 1, 200 and only one fifth part have required a ventilator, according to Eduardo Clark, director of government in the Mexican capital.
“The 81% of the patients in the Hospitals of the Government of Mexico City were because they did not have your complete vaccination schedule against COVID-19″
The attacks
In any case, the Pan American Organization of Health (PAHO) is on alert. He believes that in Mexico the fourth wave due to coronavirus will be greater and more intense.
“According to the analyzes of the federal Ministry of Health, a fourth higher wave is expected to the third and, comparatively to the same time in 2021, many more cases are observed”, explained Sylvain Aldighieri, Incident Manager for COVID-19 PAHO.
The 11 of January, a record figure was reached at the federal level with more than 33, 600 new cases and also a record of active cases with more than 70 thousand in the last days. However, less lethal.
Irving Marín and his friends infected the entire family that accompanied them to Cancun, people between 19 and 59 years. They returned to CDMX to go home in quarantine, where they continue without major complications.
“We believe it was the omicron due to the symptoms, no one lost taste or smell,” says an optimistic before his recovery and that of others.
Before getting vaccinated with AstraZeneca, Irvig had been infected in Bogotá, when he visited his paternal family . She went out one Saturday to dinner with her cousin, they had a few drinks in a bar and talked with many people.
The next day he felt like a bad hangover. On Monday the fever came, stomach discomfort, constipation at times, at times with diarrhea and drinks and the next day she woke up and felt like a hangover and on Monday she began to feel fever and body aches.
“She didn’t want to be anything, the cognitive area was totally affected. I am a systems engineer and I program software, I need a lot of concentration and I couldn’t do it”, she specifies. Instead, “now, I am working at home normally”.
Politicians and their messages
Like Irving, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador fell ill on these dates for the second time. He suspended his physical presence at the morning press conferences but did not stop working virtually.
He even sent messages to reassure the population. In a video posted on social networks, he explained what was the treatment he had followed in recent days to overcome the infection.
He said that he had been treated with paracetamol, vaporub, honey and other home remedies and that experiencing the disease firsthand allowed him to know that it was so serious.
“I don’t take any special medications,” he said. “They should be applied to those with chronic diseases,” he clarified.
Mexico recently approved the Pfizer pharmaceutical anticovid pill for emergency use, although it is not yet known when it will arrive or for what exact cases it will be used.
Meanwhile, various states of the country report infections in government offices. In the federal congress, the activities of the Permanent Commission had to be suspended and in the states of Querétaro, Sinaloa and Hidalgo there are dozens of infections among deputies.
In some schools they have had to return to the online modality since children under 11 years have not yet been vaccinated.
In recent days, the federal deputy Kenia López described as “inhumane” that children cannot access a vaccine against the coronavirus, as she assured that, in several countries, minors are inoculated from the age of two.
In the border states, parents who can go to the United States are taking their children because in Mexico people older than 50.
You may be interested in:
· “We are out of the contagion, it went well for us”, says AMLO to the returns to his morning conference after COVID-19
· “I feel pretty good” and with “the will to live”, says AMLO after a new infection by COVID-19
Andrés Manuel López Obrador confirms that he tested positive for COVID-19; for the second time