Mexico responds to the coronavirus pandemic
Kent Paterson/Special to the Digie Zone
 |
| Woman with mask at Juarez, MX airport. J.L.Gonzalez/Reuters |
As Mexico counts its first deaths from the dreaded COVID-19 coronavirus, different but not uniform measures
were implemented throughout the country in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease.
Large events like the spring's
massive San Marcos National Fair in Aguascalientes (an event which
attracts
an estimated 8 million attendees and is an economic driver of the
central Mexican city) have been postponed or cancelled, gyms closed,
museums and theaters shut down, Masses cancelled, and public schools and
universities put on extended breaks.
Cities and states have enacted
varied public health rules ranging from the closure of bars and discos
(Jalisco state, home of Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta) to a 50
percent reduction in customer capacity at bars and restaurants in Juarez, Chihuahua, bordering Dona Ana County, New Mexico, and El Paso,
Texas.
Although Juarez sits next door
to New Mexico and Texas, and economic, social and cultural interactions
in the borderland collectively known as the Paso del Norte are a
historic daily routine, Juarez's Phase 1 social distancing rules
unveiled March 19 don't go as far either as in New Mexico or Texas, both of
which have ordered bars closed and restaurants restricted
to take-out service.
Until now, Juarez reports four confirmed cases of COVID-19, with all of them involving young people who'd
traveled outside Mexico, according to Mexican news media accounts.
As of March 22, El Paso counted 9 cases of Covid-19, including 3 Army reserve soldiers from New York at the U.S. Army's Fort Bliss,
El Paso-based media outlet KVIA reported March 22.
In the mold of the Mexican
president's daily morning press conferences, Mexico's secretariat of health
is giving regular briefings on the status of COVID-19 in the country
that are posted on YouTube and on Mexican media outlets like El
Universal.
On March 22, the federal agency
reported that the nationwide toll of COVID-19 to date included two
deaths,
316 confirmed cases, 793 suspected infections and 1,667 negatives. The
numbers change daily, and a sharp spike is noted after March 7.
The Mexican response
Last week, Mexican President
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) announced the Mexican armed forces
are
being enlisted to help manage the crisis. At his March 19 morning news
conference, AMLO said the armed forces count on specialists and trained
nurses who can lend a hand in a time of need.
Concretely, the Mexican leader
said the military is preparing a DN-III-E emergency plan to address the
public health crisis. At the same time, he said the new National Guard
will distribute advance payments of national pensions to elders residing
in hard-to-reach places.
Sporadic medicine shortages and
the overall, taxed condition of many hospitals were polemical issues
in Mexico even before the novel coronavirus outbreak, but AMLO assured
reporters that Mexico has enough hospital beds and medicine to weather
the COVID-19 virus storm.
"We've prepared ourselves for some time to have the necessary infrastructure when we are confronted with
a bigger demand for hospitalization and care of the sick," AMLO said.
The days ahead will test AMLO's optimism.
Mexico's President was the subject of ample criticism recently after he waded into crowds and was photographed
kissing a little girl on one of his frequent public appearances across the nation.
Though he has asked people to stay home as a preventative measure to contain the virus, AMLO reiterated
that heavy-handed policies won't be employed and discounted ordering a curfew.
"This is what suits us, and I am sure the people will pay attention to us," he said. "Nothing by force.
All of this is being done in a responsible way."
In an interview with the
Reforma news agency picked up by El Diario de Juarez on March 21, two
representatives
of the World Health Organization and Pan-American Health Organization
in Mexico, Cristian Morales and Jean-Marc Gabastou, assessed Mexico's
preparedness and prospects for confronting the pandemic.
The two health professionals determined the current stage of the virus outbreak in Mexico as falling
within
Phase 1, but credited many entities for already adopting Phase 2
measures. Morales predicted the Mexico would rapidly enter Phase 2 and
then Phase 3 "probably in the next few weeks," but that a big-and
critical-unknown was how the cases would stack up geographically.
On the plus side, Gabastou said Mexico, which has learned from the experience of other countries, possesses
"high quality technology and very well prepared personnel," and has sufficient testing capacity at this time.
Gabastou and Morales expressed
concern about the exposure of senior baggers at big box stores like
Walmart
who work only for tips, and contended that the country's high rates of
diabetes and obesity could contribute to elevating the number of deaths
from COVID-19.
Will the junk food diet that became so implanted in Mexico during recent decades now come back to bite
the country in a big way?
Economic blows
While AMLO maintains that
Mexico has sufficient financial reserves to overcome COVID-19, the
emergency
is already slamming the economy, with the peso hitting historic lows in
relation to the dollar, tax revenue earning oil plummeting to its
lowest price in 21 years, the Mexican Stock Exchange tanking, and auto
plants closing.
Moreover, the record remittances sent home by migrant Mexican workers in the U.S. during the past couple
of years will surely plunge amid the mass layoffs now sweeping El Norte.
The U.S.-Mexican decision to close border travel to all but "essential" purposes, is very bad news for
U.S. border cities like El Paso, where Mexican shoppers account for a large chunk of the city's retail sales revenues.
Scattered accounts of
price-gouging and panic buying similar to the U.S. have appeared in the
Mexican media, touching such places as Mexico City and Mexico state. Earlier
this month, in Juarez, desperate shoppers from El Paso were
blamed for helping strip store shelves in Juarez's big box stores of
such essentials as paper products.
The emerging economic crisis gravely jeopardizes the key tourism sector, a business which represents
nearly 9 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product- and at one of the most inconvenient moments of the year.
When the crisis struck, Mexicans were preparing for their annual Holy Week-Easter tourism holidays
to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco and other beach destinations that stay afloat from the tourism economy.
"The lights of a city that
lives by night are starting to turn off, an unusual and historic
development
that will drastically impact the economy of distinct sectors of
society, where the immense majority live day by day," editorialized El
Sol de Acapulco.
Kent Paterson, an author-journalist based in New Mexico, is an expert on Mexico and a frequent contributor to the Digie Zone.
