In a period of just twelve months, from April 2020 to March 2021, more than half a million Mexicans lost their lives due, almost certainly, to the coronavirus Covid-19. In this regard, the federal government only publicly accepts that the death toll is up to now slightly higher than 200,000. A figure that, moreover, would already be exorbitant in other countries of the world.
However, as both national and international specialists have denounced, the Mexican authorities have lied repeatedly for months. It has been one lie after another. Since the beginning of the pandemic the federal government has misrepresented the severity of the problem: it has underestimated the number of people infected by the coronavirus; it has ignored in its accounting the tens of thousands of Mexicans who have died outside of public health hospitals; he has even lied about the simple vaccination schedule against the virus. A calendar whose final version continues to be eagerly awaited by millions of older adults throughout the Republic.
But, the question arises now, if the government figures about those who died from the pandemic, how then could the true magnitude of the tragedy be estimated? The way to estimate it is less difficult than it might seem at first glance. In fact, the methodology described below has been frequently used in a good number of countries, including ours.
To begin with, we must collect the number of deaths recorded weekly in Mexico before the start of the pandemic in March 2020 (the further back these data are collected, the better). Done this you have to use statistical models to forecast how many deaths from various diseases would have occurred in 2020 and what we have been in 2021 in the absence of a coronavirus pandemic.
The last step is simply to contrast that forecast of “typical” deaths with the large number of extra deaths that occurred in the period and that, according to the authorities, were not due to the coronavirus. This excess mortality, this difference between official deaths and those predicted, can be used as an estimate of deaths from coronavirus that were not identified as such.
The journalist Peniley Ramírez of EL UNIVERSAL, whose work is always essential to read, published ten days ago that, according to studies on excess mortality, the figure of more than half a million deaths had already been reached then. To do this, multiply the official death toll, up to that point, by the factor “2.57” suggested by the mathematician’s calculations. Arturo Erdely and the experts Mario romero and Laurianne Despeghel.
On the other hand, if you multiply 200,000 by “2.5”, a factor slightly lower than the other, it turns out that it was four days ago when the barrier of 500,000 deceased people was crossed. The factor “2.5” was suggested to whoever writes this by Raul Rojas, the brilliant Mexican expert in artificial intelligence (distinguished professor at the Free University of Berlin). Over the last few months, Rojas has written several columns on the subject in EL UNIVERSAL. His reflections on those Mexicans who, apparently, “died to death” are worth reading.
Professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey.
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