We have very personal
reasons for watching the coronavirus epidemic in Mexico. Our son Chris, his girlfriend,
and her children live in San Vicente, a small town in the Pacific coastal state
of Nayarit. The economy there is driven almost entirely by the tourist resorts
of the Bahía de Banderas (Bay of Flags). The largest resort on the bay
is Puerto Vallarta, in the neighbouring state of Jalisco. We also have close
friends in Mexico City. María de Jesús Cevallos de Landera, with whose family I
lived in 1974-1975, lives in a colonia (a neighbourhood) just south of the
Aztec Stadium. Like us, she is in the vulnerable category.
We all hear the numbers:
the cases, the daily deaths, the R etc. In Mexico, the numbers have taken a
decided turn for the worse in the last week or so. As of 17 May, Mexico had reported
49,219 cases (surely too low) and 5,177 deaths. Figures for 14 May reported
17,759 cases and 1,075 deaths in Mexico City and the State of Mexico, into
which the huge city spills over in crowded settlements. Nayarit, by contrast
reported 252 cases and 24 deaths, Jalisco 699 cases and 61 deaths. Jalisco
includes Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city. If true, the figures
suggest that so far Guadalajara has been little affected.
When I spoke to María
de Jesús last week, she had been at home for about three weeks, except for a
morning walk around the park in the centre of her colonia, and once a
month to pay her electricity bill (online payments are still not common in
Mexico). She told me that many metro stations are closed and the bus schedules
reduced. There is very little activity in her colonia, but in the next one,
with a much more working class population, the streets are full, the shops are
open and social distancing does not exist.
Mexico is a federal
republic. The state governors therefore have powers and responsibilities and
the powers of the president and federal government are, in theory, restricted.
However, in practice, the president has always wielded considerable power in
all matters of national importance. In the current pandemic, the president,
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has national responsibility for the public
health response. He has, for example, announced that he federal government will
buy additional ventilators. His director of the Undersecretariat of Prevention and
Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell Ramírez, an epidemiologist, coordinates the
national response. He has a degree from UNAM, Mexico’s foremost public
university, and a PhD in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in USA. However,
AMLO has refused to talk to state governors on the grounds that they will only
ask for money. Therefore, the response to the pandemic has been a mix of
national and state initiatives.
About mid-March, the
federal government ordered the closure of all schools until further notice.
This has meant that Chris’ charity, Pasitos de Luz, has stopped providing
therapy and education to disabled children, probably until September. Nor do
they receive the three healthy meals a day that Pasitos serves them. Since
their parents, already poor, have no work, Chris has now become the food bank
coordinator for the neediest families. His colleague who delivers the bags of
food attracts crowds of people desperate to know where he was able to get the
food. In other words, even those who do not become infected can suffer great
hardship.
On 30 March the federal
government ordered all non-essential businesses to close for a month. Non-essential
businesses include beer makers (only imported beers are now available) and the maquiladoras
(assembly factories) along the US border that supply parts and finished goods
to US companies. Federal law requires employers to “negotiate” with their staff
a revised contract if the business closures result in reductions in pay. In
fact, workers have no choice. AMLO urged on employers their moral duty to pay
the salaries of idle workers. This may be possible for large corporations. It
is much less so for the many small businesses. In practice, the income of many
families disappeared over night. Chris has been asked to sign a short-term
contract on half pay (he works full time from home). His girlfriend was
dismissed instantly from her job in a bar. Many Mexicans make their living in
the “informal economy”, earning precarious incomes from selling food or other
items on the streets, cleaning windscreens at traffic lights, and the like. If
they are lucky they earn a little more than they need to eat. If they cease
their activities they will go hungry.
In the case of
Jalisco, the state announced on 4 April its Plan Jalisco Covid-19. The plan
defined essential businesses: for example, “restaurants, preferably with
delivery or takeaway”, bakeries, supermarkets, spare parts shops, hardware and
stationers, construction, agriculture, and all medical and health-related
businesses. Non-essential designates activities such as department stores, furniture,
clothing and shoe stores, gyms, spas, motels, swimming pools, model agencies.
All the main beaches were closed. Flights from overseas stopped, so the many
businesses that cater for foreign tourists ceased trading or cut back. Bus
services reduced because there are fewer passengers. In Nayarit sales of
alcohol stopped.
Chris reported that
one of the first consequences of the closure of the beaches, was that the many
people who make their “informal” living selling to tourists, moved inland to
sell door to door. Chris has bought pumpkins seeds, chiles, pozole (a delicious
stew) from somebody calling at his door. Barbers closed their shops, and
instead offered undistanced cuts at home. It is impossible to tell these people
to stay home. The lady selling pumpkin seeds had travelled over 600kms from her
home to earn money during the tourist season. If she goes home she will have no
income. Nayarit allows small social gatherings: for example, a barbecue at home
for four or five neighbours or friends.
With his girlfriend
and her children, Chris drove recently to Puerto Vallarta to have dinner at a
tapas restaurant. At the Jalisco border, the state police have a roadblock to
stop traffic and check the purpose of journeys, if they care to stop anyone,
which on this occasion they did not. In Puerto Vallarta, souvenir shops have
removed their trinkets to sell face masks: about half the people on the street
were wearing masks. The restaurant had given over its first floor to
hand-washing stations and sanitizers. A poster informed customers that the
staff had passed Jalisco’s Covid-19 training course. Tables were at least 1.5m
apart, staff wore masks. Tips will be reduced, so incomes will suffer.
It is more than
probable that Mexico will experience a substantial recession. Exports to USA
will be affected by conditions there and closure of the maquiladoras and
other businesses. Oil prices have plummeted. Mexico has for many years had the
foresight to insure its oil production against price falls, which will limit
the damage this year. Next year may be another matter. The peso has fallen
against the dollar and the pound (by some 14% since we visited last October). Tourism,
a large industry in Mexico, will not return for some time.
The social and
economic consequences of Covid-19 will be severe, regardless of the rates of infection
and death. The public health system is not well funded. It may struggle to cope
with the number of infected people. Even after buying more ventilators, Mexico
will have one critical care bed per 16,130 people, a figure well below that for
the UK (one bed per 11,305 before buying additional ventilators, a provision
considered very inadequate by European standards).
An epilogue for the
UK:
As I finished my early
morning run today I saw a neighbour who is a taxi driver, standing by one of
his two vehicles. He explained that he caters to the transportation needs of
care homes. One car is adapted for wheelchair use. He now has almost no
wheelchair customers: he told me that they have all died. He now transports
carers, rather than those they care for.
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