The Mexico City neighborhoods with the most COVID-19 cases

On June 28, Mexico City’s Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum presented a new interactive map that shows COVID-19 cases by neighborhood in the city.

Sheinbaum said that the population must be “supportive” so the publication of the neighborhood map aims for people and businesses in the most critical areas to be more careful and follow health measures to prevent more infections.

The map is available online.

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The 10 Mexico City neighborhoods with most active COVID-19 cases

As of August 19, Mexico City has registered a total of 87,329 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 9,890 deaths. It is one of the worst-hit places in Mexico. As of August 18, cases throughout the country surpassed 531,000 and over 57,000 deaths had been registered due to the new disease.

According to Mexico City’s new interactive, as of August 19, the neighborhood with more active COVID-19 infections is San Bartolo Ameyalco with 39 cases; it is located at the Álvaro Obregón borough.

Moreover, on August 16, Mexico City’s government presented the 44 neighborhoods that concentrate 16.5% of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city, and that will receive priority attention starting on August 19 in order to control the spread of the new disease.

“There will be a focused and comprehensive intervention to reduce activities, grant support that promotes people staying at home, and ensures access to health for those living in those places,” Sheinbaum added that from now, every Sunday, the government will update the priority attention neighborhoods with effect on the next Wednesday and for the next 15 days.

The neighborhoods were selected based on the number of active cases and the rate of active cases per every 100,000 inhabitants:

Intervention at these neighborhoods is comprised of epidemiological monitoring at each house, testing, early channeling for confirmed cases, the installation of health kiosk for medical advice, information campaigns, medical, economic, and food support for families with members who tested positive to COVID-19, the temporary suspension of open-air commerce, and the general strengthening of health measures.

It must be stressed that each borough is implementing different measures to fight the pandemic in their high-risk neighborhoods .

For instance, some have opted for disinfecting houses where people died due to the new coronavirus, while others have closed parks, gardens, and gyms or chose to allow street markets to be open and only suspended the food sale in the streets.

Some boroughs will also distribute face masks outside the most-used subway stations, work with police bodies to discourage reunions and verify the commerce is following the corresponding health measures. Other boroughs will disinfect public transport and streets.

Mexico City’s actions against COVID-19

Mexico City’s government and its 16 boroughs are working on a program to improve the conditions at the neighborhoods with more COVID-19 cases and prevent further infections, as informed Claudia Sheinbaum.

“We are working together with mayors in a scheme that gives us more control over these places and that results in fewer infections.

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“Until now, it is a strategy of information, control, and monitoring of contacts, not only via telephone but in person; Citizen Participation visits houses with the Health Ministry and if there are active cases, they provide all due information and guide families to stay home so that, if they are infected, they don’t spread [the disease] in other places,” she explained.

Last month, Mexico City’s government announced it would launch an aggressive mass testing campaign to detect COVID-19 cases and prevent further infections among the population.

The local government aims to reach 100,000 tests per month by July as the federal government will stick by its policy of administering very few tests during the coronavirus pandemic.

Claudia Sheinbaum said testing will be paired with an intensive information campaign and an attempt at contact tracing.

The sprawling city of 9 million people, with an equal number or more in the suburbs, has confirmed more than 87,000 infections and more than 9,800 deaths, both considered to be undercounted because of limited testing. With 100,000 tests per month, the city could be able to test one in every 14 residents by the end of the year.

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Moreover, Mexico City’s government, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the UNAM’s School of Medicine, and the “Salvador Zubirán” National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition are training general practitioners working pharmacies to standardize medical care for COVID-19.

“From the learning derived from the pandemic, we seek to generate the same care, for there to be the same detection of the symptoms, the same kind of care, and, in case they have to go to the hospital, resort to triage as soon as possible so that they can be treated by a doctor at another level,” said Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.

Therefore, first contact general practitioners at pharmacies will be trained because they are the ones who are closest to the population and they are the first place where patients go; they need to know how to recognize the symptoms and decide whether patients need to resort to triage or not.

The project aims to train 600 doctors working at pharmacies in the city although the number could rise for there are over 11,000 pharmacies in Mexico City .

Therefore, first contact general practitioners at pharmacies will be trained because they are the ones who are closest to the population and they are the first place where patients go; they need to know how to recognize the symptoms and decide whether patients need to resort to triage or not.

In addition, doctor’s offices at pharmacies could have oximeters to channel people with COVID-19, but it will not be a test performed to all patients; hence, Mexico City’s government called doctors working at pharmacies to be trained, said Oliva López Arellano.

“The objective is to train physicians and for them to have oximeters, but also to be able to identify the saturation of oxygen, the heart and breathing rates, and to able to identify silent hypoxia.”

Likewise, she stressed that, along with Mexico City’s government, they pretend to include kits with oximeters for people with comorbidities, in addition to instructions to do proper measures. Moreover, she asserted the government is purchasing more equipment for doctors at Health Centers so that they can have oximeters.

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