Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has been reluctant to impose mandatory “social distancing” orders on the Mexican population. According to USNews, López Obrador “has maintained a relaxed public attitude” toward COVID-19, and the Mexican government did not impose a ban on “nonessential” work until March 30, long after health officials in other countries insisted Mexico must do so.
According to Dr. Miguel Betancourt, president of the Mexican Society of Public Health, those measures are “too late” and “should have come weeks earlier.” But, even with legal measures in place, it’s hard to say how many Mexicans can afford to follow them. The Financial Times has described what is likely a common attitude in Mexico:
Salvador Almonte has been doing a roaring trade in antiviral citrus cocktails at his stall in Iztapalapa, a sprawling working-class district of Mexico City. He makes about $9 to $13 a day selling juices and sandwiches and—like his customers—cannot contemplate staying at home to slow the spread of Covid-19. “We live day to day,” he said. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat.”…
Cuauhtémoc Rivera, head of the Association of Small Businesses, warned that a quarter of a million corner shops could close, with the loss of 500,000 jobs….If this goes on for a long time, I don’t know how we’ll all survive,” said Enrique Rosas, who has a fleet of 20 taxis.
The Mexican government is right to be hesitant to shut down Mexican businesses. The distance between a “normal” economy and grinding poverty is a lot smaller in Mexico than in a wealthy country like the United States or Germany. While mandatory lockdowns in rich countries will cause mass impoverishment—complete with all the usual mental and physical health problems that accompany it—the stakes are even higher in a middle-income country like Mexico.
Moreover, many Mexicans are already suffering from the mandatory shutdowns in the US. In 2019, for example, Mexicans working in the United States sent more than $39 billion back to Mexico. This is a vital lifeline for many Mexicans, and these remittances are likely to be decimated by the government-forced shutdown.
The Financial Times continues:
Balancing the competing needs to keep citizens healthy without devastating the economy is particularly tricky in Mexico….almost 50 per cent of Mexicans live below the poverty line, another 30 per cent are vulnerable to sinking into poverty and 30m work in the informal sector, where they receive no social benefits.
What Mexico Learned from the H1N1 Panic
This isn’t the first time Mexicans have been commanded to lock down their economy to battle a disease.
During the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, Mexican officials closed schools for a week, locked down various businesses, canceled movies, concerts, soccer games, and “virtually forced the entire population to wear ineffective face masks.” Mexico experienced 390 deaths out of a population of 120 million.
This had devastating effects for Mexico’s economy, especially its tourist industry. According to the Atlantic Council:
The cost of the pandemic was estimated at 1 percent of Mexico’s GDP in 2008….The A(H1N1) outbreak particularly impacted tourism—an important component of the Mexican economy due to its magnitude and its importance as a source of foreign currency; the tourism industry lost an average of 80 percent of its sales. After the first weeks of the quarantine, 90 percent of the country’s hotel and transportation reservations were canceled, along with 290 cruise ship arrivals. It was estimated that in 2009, Mexico lost $3.4 billion from touristic activities due to the pandemic.
In the immediate aftermath, the Mexican government was praised and congratulated for its actions, but many later admitted the Mexican government had overreacted. According to Jorge Castañeda Gutman, former Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
One year later the WHO acknowledged it had exaggerated, and the Mexican government was moderately criticized for the type of measures it took….The government didn’t know, or didn’t acknowledge, that this response would prove to be undoubtedly more onerous for the country than the epidemic itself.
David Adams
Article URL : https://www.zerohedge.com/health/why-mexico-fears-shutting-down-its-economy-combat-covid-19?