ARE Mexicans Immune? Coronavirus Death Count Passes 1K
04/24/2020
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Mexico's Excelsior announced on the evening of April 23 that the death count from Coronavirus COVID-19 has surpassed 1000:

Department of Health authorities announced this Thursday [April 23] that the amount of deaths from coronavirus in the country [Mexico] reached 1,069 while the positive cases reached 11,633.

[Sube a mil 69 número de muertos por coronavirus en México ("Deaths from Coronavirus in Mexico Rise to 1,069") Excelsior, April 23, 2020]

According to a leaked insider report, in March a coronavirus death projection was put forth in the Mexican Cabinet. The minimum deaths predicted were 400 and the maximum was 2000. This projection was based, in part, on a racial theory.

Here's what I reported in a previous article:

Salvador Garcia Soto, a columnist for El Universal, says the [Mexican] cabinet discussed Mexico’s racial identity relative to the virus in a recent meeting [Esperan hasta 2 mil muertes por Covid-19 en México (“Up to 2,000 Deaths from Covid-19 Expected in Mexico”), March 23, 2020]. That must mean Garcia has a secret source within the cabinet.

Lopez-Gatell’s Chinese Virus team and some other officials presented an estimate of how many Mexicans they expect to die from coronavirus: as low as 400 and high as 2,000. They see that as an optimistic scenario, a maximum of 2,000 deaths.

According to Garcia: "In that report, the cabinet health specialists commented to the president that “genetically, the Mexican race has greater resistance to this type of virus than other races such as the European” and they argued that it has to do with the Mexican genome and with mestizaje [the mixture of Spaniards and Indians which produced Mexico’s mestizo majority]. That’s why they expected that that would influence the impact that the new coronavirus would have among the Mexican population." Said in Spanish, March 30, 2020

Will Mexico's racial composition really keep the coronavirus death count down? I don't know, but it's worth consideration, along with other factors.

In fact, why not compare coronavirus stats on the three major Mexican groups: the mestizo majority, Mexican Indians and white Mexicans? The data gleaned from such a study would be good for the future of all three groups.

Aside from the thousand plus deaths in Mexico, at an April 21 press conference, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said that

"We have a report in this moment that there are now more than 300 Mexicans or persons of Mexican origin who have died in the United States."

[Versión estenográfica de la conferencia de prensa matutina |Martes 21 de abril de 2020 ("Stenographic Version of the Morning Press Conference, Tuesday April 21, 2020"), Mexican Presidential Website.]

On the topic of coronavirus rates of American Latinos in general, see Coronavirus Case Rates and Death Rates for Latinos in the United States, by Cliff Despres, Salud America, April 20, 2020.

 

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