BajaNomad

High C-19 mortality rate among young maquiladora workers

BajaNomad - 6-9-2020 at 10:35 AM

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A new report in Mexico has identified that young people who contract COVID-19 in Baja California are dying at a rate 25 times higher than the same demographic just north of the border in San Diego County.

The same study discovered most of the young people who are dying live in border cities like Tijuana and had jobs or ties to maquiladoras, which are assembly plants in Mexico operated by foreign interests including the United States.

... Most of the workers are young between 25-45 years of age.

Baja California, located just south of California, has close to a thousand of these factories.

Numbers show that at least 400 workers in Baja California working in these plants have gotten COVID-19 and at least 83 of them have died, according to the state health secretary.

“The vast majority of infected people are factory workers,” said Sergio Moctezuma, the state labor secretary for Baja California.

According to stats released last week, death among people ages 40 to 49 is about 25 times higher in Baja California than it is in San Diego County, which has a similarly sized population.

And for those age 50 to 59, the number of deaths is nearly 10 times higher.

Maquiladora leaders defend their industry saying workers could be infected anywhere.

“Coronavirus cases are high among maquiladora workers simply because they make up a high percentage of the general population,” said Kurt Honold, who represents the maquiladora sector.

“Fifty percent of the people who work in Tijuana work in the maquiladora industry,” he said.
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https://www.borderreport.com/regions/california/covid-19-kil...

SFandH - 6-9-2020 at 10:52 AM

As Workers Fall Ill, U.S. Presses Mexico to Keep American-Owned Plants Open

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/world/americas/coronaviru...

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Gotta keep the TV factories open so Americans who get paid to stay home can watch TV.

SFandH - 6-9-2020 at 11:18 AM

Quote: Originally posted by lencho  
Quote: Originally posted by BajaNomad  
“Coronavirus cases are high among maquiladora workers simply because they make up a high percentage of the general population,”

That doesn't explain a 20% lethality rate among those infected. Something strange here... :smug:


The severity of illness is a function of how severely one is infected. Perhaps these workers were exposed to the virus day after day until they got too sick to work, resulting in massive, lethal infections.

Alm - 6-9-2020 at 02:47 PM

There was statistics from Canada that mortality was high not only in nursing homes (where most are aged 70+), but also in poor areas in buildings with multigenerational families living under the same roof.

There is also the level of care in a typical Mexican hospital.

Alm - 6-9-2020 at 06:00 PM

I understand that lethality is a mortality that is disease-specific. Though in clinical studies they often refer to this exactly as "disease-specific death". When they "think" it was disease specific.

How many workers?

AKgringo - 6-10-2020 at 08:38 AM

Quote; "Numbers show that at least 400 workers in Baja California working in these plants have gotten COVID-19 and at least 83 of them have died, according to the state health secretary."

Those numbers are pretty useless for figuring out a rate, or ratio of anything without knowing how many workers there are, and how many were tested?

SFandH - 6-10-2020 at 09:14 AM

Here's an interesting write-up about the virus and death / mortality rate measurements:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...



[Edited on 6-10-2020 by SFandH]

SFandH - 6-10-2020 at 06:16 PM

Quote: Originally posted by lencho  
Quote: Originally posted by SFandH  

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-...
I sure am confused. In that article, and in a number of other places, they are using "mortality rate" as the number of deaths divided by the number of infected individuals, and for that they would need to know the number of individuals infected.

But all the definitions that I have seen, define mortality rate as the ratio of deaths to the [complete] number of population.

https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section3.html

Those could be (hopefully) radically different numbers.


I think as long as the group is specified, the phrase "mortality rate" can be used. IOW you can have a mortality rate that is the ratio of deaths to infected or a mortality rate that is the ratio of deaths to the total population. The group, infected or total or ??, needs to be specified for the phrase to be meaningful.

I want to know what the COVID-19 mortality rate is for all 70-year-old, handsome men. ;)


[Edited on 6-11-2020 by SFandH]

Alm - 6-11-2020 at 04:31 PM

Definition or not, mortality (or lethality) per infected shows how serious the disease is, regardless of other factors. For Covid it is in single digits across all age segments in most countries. The number of infected is taken from testing. It is assumed that everybody with symptoms gets tested - which is unrealistic, but this measure is useful for comparison to other diseases or between different areas.

83 workers per 400 = 20% mortality per infected, way higher than average in Mexico. I agree with possible explanation of repeated infection from working in the same anti-sanitary conditions day after day. More viruses in the body, less chance to fight it.

Mexico daily cases (however scarce the testing is) have not begun declining yet - see 2nd graph: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/mexico/.

An important measure is the number of patients in ICU and on ventilators - more important than daily cases, according to some - but such statistics is not available for Mexico.

Btw, daily cases in the US have stopped declining for the last 4 weeks: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/.

Alm - 6-12-2020 at 11:25 AM

Quote: Originally posted by lencho  

A lot of the time I see it used (without that context), and I don't know what they're actually talking about. Or whether they do. :(

Depends on the source quality. Studies published in Litcovid adhere to stricter standards and are usually clear as to what they mean. Articles in NYT are "mostly" clear. Local sources covering the US/Mex border areas are low quality.

Knowing the total number of workers at those factories (in addition to the number of infected workers) would only reflect local transmission rate, which in turn reflects local conditions of work - distancing, sanitary conditions and other things. It is also not productive making conclusions as to the age-specific mortality when there is just one age segment - "most of the workers are young 25-45". Multivariate analysis is desirable.