A year after coming into power, the on-going coronavirus pandemic is doing Andrés Manuel López Obrador no favors. From promoting hugs and kisses one day to launching a public-health campaign presenting a superhero icon to inform people on social distancing the next, Mexico’s president was given a chance to shine as a beacon of hope and authority in the middle of chaos, but his performance has been less than stellar.
Besides López Obrador’s initial negligence, Mexico’s ill-equipped public health system and the social and economic inequality that reigns throughout the country are a combination for disaster that may have long-running consequences.
Mexico’s public healthcare system is usually saturated, even without a pandemic or crisis. Despite having pioneered the public-health system during the first half of the twentieth century, its glory days are long over. Budget cut after budget cut, administration after administration, Mexico’s public healthcare system has decayed considerably, leaving the country with a weak frontline to face the threat of the coronavirus. As a consequence, medical staff around the country find themselves forced to buy their own protective gear in order to keep providing health services and treating COVID-19 patients while protecting themselves – and their families – as best they can. Another fault is the centralization and low speed of testing, where most people are being refused testing despite presenting symptoms, on the basis that their symptoms are not bad enough or that their test would not be considered official unless they took it in a public hospital, resulting in a greater risk of contagion due to exposing themselves to more people, putting others at risk. Often, these people choose to go untested to avoid spreading the disease. The pre-existing conditions are already dire, and the number of cases is just beginning to climb. What is happening in Monclova (a small town in the northern state of Coahuila) is a warning sign of what could soon enough be the norm in the country: as of this writing, 32 doctors from the local health clinic have tested positive for coronavirus, and one has already died. It is only a matter of time until we see the full effects of this particular outbreak, giving us an idea of what awaits us as a country.
In economic terms, most people in Mexico work informally, meaning that legally speaking, they have no access to public universal healthcare, leaving them unprotected by the state. In a similar fashion, working informally implies that millions of families live day to day and staying inside is not an option if they want to afford basic needs, like food. As of April 2nd, there has been no official announcement at the federal level as to how they will support these families during this contingency. In addition to these families, thousands of lay-offs are imminent as factories are forced to shut down operations in an effort to diminish the spread of the virus by sending their workers home. While López Obrador’s advisors have yet to announce a fiscal strategy, his prior affirmations are not promising. Unlike Macron or Putin, who have resolved to give their citizens relief through the suspension of payment of rent and taxes, López Obrador has argued in his morning conferences that he will not pardon any tax payment whatsoever to give the state more economic resources to fight the looming crisis. No official statement has been made yet, but as mentioned, it appears that the Mexican state itself will not intervene directly in economic terms through the implementation of emergency fiscal policies.
As of the time of writing, most of the early relief action has come from the private sector working in conjunction with the government of each state, with most of the responsibility lying in the hands of the governors and their respective teams. From the onset of the crisis, the private sector has led the way on what decisions the government should take, often taking action a week or more in advance. Examples include Tec de Monterrey,a private college, choosing to cancel classes on a short notice from one day to another a week before the Secretary of Public Education announced the closing of all schools at a national level. At a state level, early action was taken by three northern states (Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León), whose border with the United States makes them particularly vulnerable to the large outbreak occurring in the northern country. From the cancellation of large public events, to the shut-down of all non-essential activities throughout those states, to the treaties made by the respective governors with private supermarkets to provide food directly and free of charge to vulnerable homes, if the rest of the country follows suit, then perhaps there is still a fighting chance for Mexico’s vulnerable population.
At this early stage of the crisis, only time will tell whether the efforts of each state will prove enough to diminish the long-term effects of the virus. Current events and the declarations made by López Obrador and his team of advisors are not promising from a fiscal policy standpoint. In healthcare terms, even if members of his team like Hugo López-Gatell PhD., Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, are implementing policies and informing the population at large through daily conferences as best they can, the hands of health experts around the country are tied due to a severe lack of resources and a population that is being misinformed by its own government. In these times of crisis after crisis, an administration who is still afraid of admitting the real severity of the situation is probably a greater threat than coronavirus itself. At this point, all that is left for most of us is to wait.
Image credit: Orna Wachman