Morbidity and Mortality Among Population Tested for COVID-19 in Nuevo León
The state of Nuevo León in Northeastern Mexico has a population currently estimated to be 5.6 million. The metropolitan area of Monterrey, where the state capital is located, houses 4.7 million residents and is the country’s third largest city.
Dr. Simón Barquera and other health and nutrition researchers in Mexico have long warned that public health in the country was deteriorating rapidly and would some day become a national security threat. No other place in the Mexico illustrates public health failure best than Monterrey, which is where Manuel Uribe—the world’s heaviest person (560 kg)—made his home until his death in 2014 at age 48.
With a population rid with comorbidities it is no surprise that COVID-19 is taking a heavy death toll in Mexico. The numbers published by federal health authorities for Nuevo León are dramatic. 36% of those tested for COVID-19 have at least one preexisting condition (hypertension, obesity, diabetes, smoking, asthma, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure and/or immunosuppression) and their death rate is 5 times that of individuals without comorbidities (7.1% vs 1.4%).
It is therefore very concerning that the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, just 137 miles away from Monterrey, has become the hottest of all COVID-19 hot spots in North America.
This week 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up the port of Beirut killing at least 157 in city which houses 2.2 million residents. The agricultural fertilizer had been unsafely stored in a warehouse at the port since 2013 when a ship in transit to Mozambique was abandoned and its cargo seized by Lebanese authorities. The unheeded public safety risk posed by having tons of fertilizer in close proximity to a warehouse storing fireworks has belatedly led to the arrest of 16 port officials.
Will the public health risk posed by rampant comorbidities in Monterrey, Nuevo León and Mexico together with a COVID-19 disaster in South Texas lead to a humanitarian catastrophe south of the border?
Will those responsible for decades of bad health policy in Mexico and terrible social outcomes (i.e.: blindness, kidney failures, heart attacks, strokes and lower limb amputations caused by diabetes) ever be called to account?