A grave digger walks in the COVID-19 section of the cemetery of San Lorenzo Tezonco Iztapalapa on the outskirts of Mexico City, Tuesday, September 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — An official said Wednesday that Mexico City suffered 20,535 “excess deaths” attributable to COVID-19 between April and August, almost double the number reported in the official death toll of 11,318.
The head of the city’s Digital Innovation Agency, José Merino, said there were 30,462 “excess deaths” in the city between April 1 and the end of August, about two-thirds of which were determined to be due to coronavirus. Excess deaths are computed by comparing the number of deaths in previous years and comparing them to 2020.
Merino wrote in his Twitter account that 92% of those deaths were in hospitals and 7% at private residences. The city of almost 9 million inhabitants, like the rest of Mexico, has had an extremely low testing rate and officials have acknowledged that the numbers of test-confirmed cases and deaths probably underestimate the real figures.
3. 73% de muertes en CDMX fueron personas residentes de la ciudad. 24% vivían en el Estado de México y 3% en otras entidades.
4. Entre mayo y agosto el exceso de mortalidad se redujo en 68% para residentes de la CDMX.
5. 92% ocurrieron en hospitales; y 7% en domicilios. (8) pic.twitter.com/PBDZ09dW0H— José Merino (@PPmerino) September 16, 2020
“These are figures that describe a tragedy,” Merino wrote.
Si bien en términos del ratio entre (defunciones/casos) o (defunciones/hospitalizaciones), CDMX ocupa el lugar 24 y 13 respectivamente en el país. Estos son datos que describen una tragedia. Minimizarlos o maximizarlos con fines políticos está fuera de nuestro código de ética.
— José Merino (@PPmerino) September 16, 2020
Merino did specify how the city had assigned that number of excess deaths to COVID-19, but city officials have been leading an effort to review death certificates to determine how many untested people had probably died of coronavirus.
It was also unclear whether test-confirmed cases were included in the excess-death figures.
