slate | Last weekend, 110,000 people attended the “Vive Latino” music festival in Mexico City,
which took place as scheduled despite several confirmed cases of
COVID-19 in Mexico’s capital. At the same time, while governments
worldwide took drastic measures to slow down the spread of the disease,
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, traveled
to the south of Mexico and met with adoring crowds, shaking hands and hugging and kissing supporters.
During his daily press conferences, AMLO has insisted that his honesty
and moral rectitude protect him from the virus and that the threat of
COVID-19 is greatly exaggerated. “I have great faith that we will move
our dear Mexico forward, that misfortunes and pandemics won’t affect
us,” he told reporters at a press conference on Sunday.
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Mexico may seem
low, but it has grown exponentially over the last week, from eight to
118, and the first death from the disease was reported on Wednesday night. Moreover, Mexico has very limited testing capabilities, and the official statistics are not a reliable indicator of the actual number of cases
in the country. Although the government’s position is that Mexico is
still in “Phase 1” of the pandemic, meaning all diagnosed cases of
COVID-19 are people who caught the virus while traveling abroad, most
experts agree the virus is already rapidly spreading within Mexico and
that the government’s nonchalance about the situation could have
disastrous results.
“We need political leaders that are properly advised and understand
the gravity of the situation,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the
Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. “A lot of
people in Mexico would die unnecessarily unless the government gets very
seriously prepared for this.” Getting seriously prepared means taking
drastic measures to curb the spread of the virus, bolstering the
hospital system, and helping people cope when the economy grinds to a
halt.
The Mexican government has not yet imposed any travel restrictions nor
encouraged people to stay home, and it seems very unlikely that the
public health system, which suffered drastic budget cuts and shortages last year, will be prepared for the magnitude of the imminent crisis.
“The current guidelines are ‘wash your hands, don’t touch your face,
and avoid people who are coughing,’ ” said Gordon McCord, a professor at
the School of Global Policy & Strategy at the University of
California San Diego.
0 comments:
Post a Comment