In the first and second waves of the pandemic, both the numbers of positive cases of COVID19, as well as hospitalizations and deaths, grew simultaneously, although with different intensities. Now, with the fraction of the population that has a greater possibility of suffering a serious or lethal picture of the disease already vaccinated, the numbers of positive cases increase, while hospitalizations and deaths have not had such aggressive changes.
The SSa evaluated the risk traffic light methodology
This does not mean that people under 30 years of age do not have the possibility of dying in a hospital if they are infected. In Mexico City, in addition to the growth curve in contagion numbers, the number of people who die or who are hospitalized by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is also increasing. So much so that the capital returned to an orange traffic light starting tomorrow, on the orders of the Head of Government, Claudia Sheinbuam.
Even so, the SSa evaluated the epidemic risk traffic light methodology for a new calibration of the indicators, according to the behavior of the pandemic now that there is already a fraction of the vaccinated population. This recalibration will affect the way the risk semaphore is calculated at the national level.
The purpose of the Ministry of Health is that entities can spend more time at a green or yellow level of risk, and that when they go to orange or red levels it is because there is already a need to take drastic measures. Health authorities claim that, while a virus has the potential to be “endemic”, that states are at risk, and that when they go to orange or red levels it is because there is already a need to take drastic measures.
Before the indicators had the same weight
Previously, the orange risk level covered a wider range than the others. In other words, “20% of the traffic light was the low level (green), 20% the moderate level (yellow), 40% the high level (orange) and 20% the maximum level (red)”. Now, from the SSa the proportions were redistributed, so that each level occupies 25%, in such a way that half of the traffic light is for low and moderate levels of risk, while the other half will be for high levels and maximums.
Risk indicators are figures such as the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Depending on how many of these indicators present worrying data, it is the level of risk that is estimated with the traffic light. Now, the indicators are:
- Incidence rate of estimated active cases per 100 thousand inhabitants.
- Mortality rate per 100 thousand inhabitants.
- Rate of hospitalized cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
- Percentage of general beds occupied in the hospitals of the IRAG Network.
- Percentage of beds with ventilators occupied in the hospitals of the SARI Network.
- Weekly percentage of positivity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
- Trend of hospitalized cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
- Trend of COVID19 syndrome cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
- Trend in the mortality rate per 100 thousand inhabitants.
Before, the 10 indicators of the SSa had the same weight when calculating the risk traffic light: 10%. Now, the value of estimated active cases was reduced, which fell to 5 percent, to give more importance to the percentage of hospital occupancy, which will now have a weight of 15% in the calculation of epidemic risk.