ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has caused 244,830 deaths in Mexico. Evaluating the severity of this contingency is possible if the hospital fatality rate of COVID-19 is described because hospitalized patients present more severe conditions. To analyze the fatality of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients. A quantitative, descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional, and retrospective study was conducted using open database from Ministry of Health in Mexico. The analysis included 71,189 discharges from patients diagnosed with COVID-19 in the Mexican Ministry of Health Hospitals during 2020. Of them, 27,403 were due to death, predominantly in men and age groups from 50 to 69 years. The general hospital fatality due to COVID-19 was 38.49%, a hospital fatality of 40.75% in men and 35.03% in women. The 55-to-99-year-old age groups, Baja California, Puebla, and Coahuila had a higher hospital fatality than the general fatality. Besides the deaths caused directly by COVID-19 (those that occurred due to respiratory failures), many deaths were indirect in persons with comorbidities exacerbated by this disease. Access to health services, social changes derived from job loss, home protection, and changes in social dynamics, facts expressed in the general mortality excess, cannot be quantified in our study. There are similar patterns with other persons infected worldwide: This disease is more severe for males and older age subjects.