The highly deteriorated state of health of the Mexican population, social and economic inequality, and the historical dismantling of the national health system’s capacity to provide services are the three structural elements that determine the outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. which has already caused more than 300,000 deaths and more than five million cases, said Hugo López-Gatell.
At the express request of an exercise of self-criticism, during the annual meeting with the civil association National Academy of Medicine of Mexico, under the title “Response and perspectives of the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico”, the Undersecretary of Prevention and Promotion of the Health of the federal Ministry of Health recognized that perhaps the health authorities did not have enough talent to adequately convene the different sectors of society, including the scientific and academic communities, to face the pandemic in unity.
Among “what we have done and could have done differently”, he highlighted:
“Perhaps there is an element where the convocation to certain sectors of society was not effective enough or we did not achieve what we wanted, which was the confluence of ideas, of visions, including former officials, scientific or academic communities, UNAM itself and several others. , which did not join. But I want to self-critically acknowledge, perhaps we didn’t have the talent to convene or persuade them to be properly convened to join the pandemic response effort.
“Finally they were very absent and left the rest to happen in the hands of those of us who are directly responsible. I have not found the opinions expressed so far structured as a constructive, critical proposal”.
He affirmed that the proposals issued, such as the analysis of five former Secretaries of Health, are due more to political ends than to solid proposals.
For their part, academics criticized the fact that everything is attributed to health deficiencies acquired in past periods.
Dr. María del Pilar Fonseca Leal, an academic from the University of San Luis Potosí criticized, in turn, that the data presented on improvements to health infrastructure are not visible, at least in that entity.
Immunity
In his participation in the forum, with recorded video, the head of Health, Dr. Jorge Alcocer stated that the beginning of 2022 “brought a feeling of uncertainty” because Mexico and the world are approaching a new stage, or a transition , of the epidemic in which the Omicron variant dominates, which shows that more needs to be known about the coronavirus.
In this context, he maintained that derived from the vaccination and spread of Omicron, it is expected that “immunity levels against this virus will soon be at their highest point”, however, he maintained that any prediction in which it has been eradicated is still distant. completely the Covid-19.
