As Latin America roared into action against coronavirus in recent days — declaring curfews, closing businesses, shutting borders — Mexico seemed like an outlier. The federal government imposed few restrictions, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continued to mingle with crowds of supporters. Suddenly, Mexico’s tune is changing.
Starting Thursday, authorities plan to halt all nonessential government activities. The announcement came days after the government closed schools and urged businesses to let employees work from home.
“The goal is that most people are not in public spaces from March 23 to April 19,” said Hugo López-Gatell, the point person for the government’s coronavirus effort.
Mexico has essentially bet that it can fine-tune its strategy, sending people home at the very moment that community transmission of the disease ramps up. Authorities thought that prematurely locking down the country could be devastating for the half of the population living in poverty.
“We had to ensure that economic activity was affected as little as possible, without putting at risk people’s health,” Jesus Ramirez, the presidential spokesman, told The Post.
The big question is testing. Mexico hasn’t done much, figuring it can detect unusual surges of illness through its health system. But many victims of coronavirus don’t show symptoms, complicating this strategy.
By Thursday night, confirmed cases of the virus reached 475, with six deaths. Did Mexico get the timing right?
If so, “Mexico will become an example of a well crafted public policy,” wrote political scientist Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, in an essay on Medium. If not, however, “Mexico may well become the next Italy or Spain,” he concluded.