Health Policy Issue Brief: COVID-19 in Mexico, an imperative to test, trace, and isolate

The Mexican government’sapproach to COVID-19 is failing. The strategy—to care for those that require hospitalization (20% of all cases), deliver mass communication messages, and regulate social distancing following a stoplight system for the rest of the population-is not aggressive enough for prevention. An anemic public health approach with scarce testing and no contact tracing or quarantine, has led to a sky-rocketing number of new infections and deaths. If the current trend continues, Mexico will see around 130 thousand deaths by December and a 53% annualized rate of decrease in the GDP. The government must implement a clear federal strategy to stop the spread of the virus: widespread testing, isolation of symptomatic cases; tracing, and quarantiningof their contacts. This comprehensive public health strategy with targeted social support to protect the vulnerable is a proven approach. Through evaluating other countries’ programs and extrapolating lessons for the Mexican context, we demonstrate thatimplementing testing and contact tracing for all acute respiratory infections is feasible with Mexico’s current resources. A strategy where symptomatic patients are tested and isolated and contacts are quarantined, can suppress community spread, save lives, reduce suffering, decrease the burden on hospitals, and restart the economic activity earlier and in a safer way. The more we wait to implement comprehensive testing and tracing to suppress the epidemic, the more people will become infected, and the impact of this measures will decrease.