Tijuana coronavirus death rate soars after hospital outbreaks
The number of deaths from the coronavirus in Mexico’s best-known border city, Tijuana, has soared and the COVID-19 mortality rate is twice the national average, the health ministry says, after medical staff quickly fell ill as the outbreak rampaged through hospital wards.
A floor at one of the city’s main public hospitals has been left empty because so many workers are sick there are not enough left to care for patients, the hospital director said, adding that about 500 of his 1,200 person staff are either off sick or furloughed because of vulnerability to the illness.
More than 21% of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus in the city do not survive, health ministry data showed as of Thursday. In the rest of Mexico, the figure was just under 10%
The two other public hospitals in Tijuana that are treating coronavirus patients also had a large number of staff out sick but the agency running those clinics denied that the high death rate was due to staff shortages. Last month, Baja California governor Jaime Bonilla said doctors, many of whom work in both the state and federal system, were “dropping like flies” in Tijuana.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-mexico-tijuana-ins/tijuana-coronavirus-death-rate-soars-after-hospital-outbreaks-idUSKBN22K2U6
