Pillpusher,
I think you probably know this since it has been discussed many times before (Including DandyDon a few posts earlier in the thread , but actually cases in Mexico is probably 10x to 20x reported numbers so I wouldn’t latch on to the 18 cases in Cozumel . You might have meant this sarcastically and I just didn’t catch it, which is definite possibility given your screen name
Mexico and Q Roo have some of the highest positivity ratings in the entire world (north of 50 percent , indicating they are likely only capturing a small percentage of the actual cases ). You can see an interesting thread from a Harvard epidemiologist at bottom of this post . Mexico is only bothering to test the very sick. There are have also been numerous wide disparities between confirmed/reported Covid deaths and actual Covid deaths (with actual linked to Covid much higher). Even the Mexican government used to say actual cases was in the range of 8x reported cases, and I think when you use deaths as a guide you can say that even 8x is quite low
Politicians in general and Mexican politicians specifically are not the most trustworthy bunch , but this is one of the few times where I would think the correct strategy might be to downplay the scale of pandemic here. Quintana Roo absolutely cannot live without tourist dollars for another 7-12 months until we hopefully have a vaccine Herd immunity is at 55-70 percent of the population—it would be catastrophic to go the route.
The politicians need to try to convince the tourists it is safe to come back. It is not really greed (well, not only greed)—it’s economic necessity The optimal strategy is to do everything possible to restrict the spread among the locals (and to tourists ) while still trying to convince tourists the risk is low. Maybe it is just coincidence, but this appears to be what they are doing. Both the super high mortality rate in Q Roo and Mexico (12-20 percent mortality even ignoring undercounted deaths ). and the super high positivity rate indicate the actual scale of the pandemic is much higher than the confirmed cases in the news indicate . Note best estimates for true Covid infection mortality rate in a normal population with good hospitals is around 0.5% to 0.8% if you don’t overrun the hospitals Mexico doesn’t have the best hospitals, so maybe their mortality rate is a few times other countries but that would get you to 2 percent or so , not 12-25 percent You can get to 23 percent for Q Roo if just look at the recovered and the dead. You can’t use the total deaths by total cases because a bunch of people that currently have virus will sadly move into the deaths category as opposed to the recovered category. Undercounting cases and overstating mortality is true everywhere due to asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases , but probably nowhere more true in the world than Mexico (possible exceptions Brazil, Russia and Iran ).
Sorry for the long commentary. Just to be clear , tourists should please come to Cozumel and spend as much money as possible. I can assure you I am definitely doing my part to support the Cozumel economy , but I can’t do it alone Tourists should just be careful while they are here. This goes doubly for people from US States where Covid cases are rising rapidly including my home state of Texas. You don’t want to catch Covid in Cozumel , and you don’t want to give someone in Cozumel Covid.
Harvard Mexico positivity twitter thread :
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https://mobile.twitter.com/drericding/status/1274816278197342209]
