I was going to keep leaving comments all over newspapers and forums but I guess it’s easier/better/quicker if I just start a new thread a report on several things related to this supposed pandemic.
What do people think?
There doesn’t seem to be middle-ground, either people think this is the end of the world or a government’s plan to make people finally accept that the armed forces take over the whole country. We have to remember that Calderon has been promoting a «war» on drugs and part of that war involved that many cities are under constant control of the military, many civilians have been abused or killed due to this unquestionable control soldiers now have. Just as an example, a pregnant woman was shot and killed after she went to a military base looking for help and a a soldier thought «she was going to kill him». Two kids were killed in a similar matter.
Where does it comes from?
Reports are increasing that this problem began in Perote, Veracruz where a company called Smithfield Foods which is responsible for a farm called «Granjas de Carroll» . The company was forbidden to keep working in the USA but they still have a lot of products (and production) all over the world.
Residents of Perote made protests during 2008 because environment was being polluted by this company and some of those people were even sentenced to jail for this.
During early April La Jornada made two articles about how «Granjas de Carroll» was thought to be related to some strange cases of respiratory-system related illnesses of people in Perote. (1), (2) and an indigenous blog added more information about this issue (here).
Strangely, the info seemed forgotten by all kinds of media until David Alvarez (here) brought it up yesterday.
The media
On Wednesday several news programs mentioned there was no such a thing as an epidemic and asked the few government officials who said something about it to remain quiet and stop exaggerating. (April26 Update – A false alarm note http://www.proyecto40.com/ choosing «internet TV» – «informativo 40 edición de la noche»). The next day at 11pm Calderon’s government announced very strict measures like closing schools and cancelling events/concerts in museums and auditoriums.
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April 25, 13:48 PM – Update
How it was being prevented
Yesterday morning people ran towards all kinds of hospitals to ask for a vaccine, hospitals ran by the government said they were expecting new vaccines «soon» and it was decided that the few ones they still had were going to be used for doctors and nurses, that didn’t stop a lot of people making long queues next to the «There are no vaccines, we don’t know when they will be available again» signs.
By 2 pm news programs asked people to wear disposable face masks and a few hours later they ran out in most drug stores all over the Valle de México (Mexico City and Estado de México). Some army workers started handing out the mask to people for free in the D.F. outside the subway, near Metrobus stations or at certain avenues.
At night the government informed people that they were not going to wait for a new vaccine because it had proved to be inefficient in the past and recommended people to just avoid public places, greeting others and to wash their hands regularly.
Since then and until today the masks are still scarce and drug stores have also reported problems meeting the demand of flu medicine. I should probably say that most kinds of medicine gets sold without a prescription in México and a lot of people are self-medicating.
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April 25, 17:25 PM – Update
Chaos and confusion
It seems the biggest part of this problem is that nobody believes anybody knows what’s going on, and I’m not talking about the usual «the government is hiding info» scenario but a complete lack of trust in anything that’s being said. Of course, this has helped spread a lot of rumours, here are some of them:
– The government wants to distract people from the economy crisis facts.
– The government is trying to create paranoia so nobody complains about all the problems they created.
– The government wants to ask for more money from various sources.
– The USA military wants to operate in Mexico.
– A foreign government created the virus and they want to see how far it gets.
– It’s a manipulation experiment.
– It was caused by the pharmaceutical industry.
-The illness is 30 years old but it was a good opportunity to test people’s reaction.
– It’s the end of the world.
– The illness is actually the Black Death but the government is afraid to admit it.
– Those who have died are already thousands.
– Only 10 people have died.
– Eventually a vaccine will be available which in reality is going to be a strange substance injected to all mexicans.
– The USA is trying to kill all Mexicans.
That’s what happens in a society so broken that not only lacks a government and has only two TV companies that are allowed to broadcast on a national level but it’s also made of citizens who were polarized by a racist and violent election’s campaign during the year 2006.
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April 25, 18:05 PM – Update
How real is it?.
Continuing with the huge amount of disbelief I add some of the most common thoughts on why the problem is not as big as it could seem.
- Religious events have not being cancelled even if all schools and Universities will be closed for 10 days. (Churches in Mexico City will remain closed starting April 25 at 9pm)
- Football matches have not been cancelled either.
- The state of San Luis Potosi has the highest number of people infected and yet not one single school has been closed there. (Schools in SLP will not be open next week).
- Even if some measures are being taken in San Luis Potosi the DF is being reported to have the highest rate of infected/deceased people when the number is clearly higher in other places. – Aded April 26.
- The government authorized itself the right to break into people’s homes without an order and based solely on speculation. -Aded April 26.
- During Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent visit (several weeks ago) it was arranged that the Mexican government no longer was going to be self-sufficient with the vaccines production and were giving a contract to a French company dedicated only to make human vaccines, the government will become a manufacturer for Sanofi-Pasteur and they had planned to inaugurate their Mexican branch next year. -Aded April 28.
Also, the «El Universal» newspaper opened several forums where people can share their experience with this influenza problem and some recurring subjects are:
– Nothing is bigger than our spirit, we must stick together to overcome this problem, it’s time to forget about political differences.
– It was AMLO’s fault (a still popular political figure of the opposition).
– There is no epidemic.
– It’s terrible to see there are people who don’t believe this is serious when so many are dead.
Two more called my attention but only because of the comedy factor:
– «If you read French and Canadian newspapers you would then realise this is very serious.» (I guess newspapers from any other part of the world don’t count…)
– «If the WHO, the USA and other countries all over the world say it’s real then it is.» (Which is why it was a great thing when they all invested so much time to talk about Osama, Foot and mouth disease, Taliban, Ebola, SARS, North Korea and Saddam Hussein, always showing an exceptional display of neutrality).
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April 26, 13:04 PM – Update
Suspension of rights
Unexpectedly, as an emergency measure and without any kind of debate a new law was approved which allows health professionals working for the government can break into any private home, business or any kind of building if they believe there’s a risk of swine flu inside.
Only in 3 out of 32 states schools are closed but this measure applies to the whole country.
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April 26, 13:34 PM – Update
World Health Organization, International Newspapers
I mentioned yesterday how some people were terribly upset that «others» didn’t believe this was a real threat when even international media and organizations expressed their concern.
I found an interesting note on the BBC claiming 50,000 were expected to die due to avian flu. This was in 2005. There was also a report from that same year by the WHO saying a pandemic was «imminent» because it had killed 45 people in Asia but «it could kill millions».
Thousands of articles by experts appeared all over the world telling us why it wasn’t going to be stopped («you can’t control birds from flying to other countries»), how everything kept going wrong and how we were going to see the beginning of the end, they all made sure to add that perhaps it wasn’t going to happen «now» but maybe one day not far from today.
When?.
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April 28, 15:51 PM
Window or TV?
When television shows one thing and your world another reality changes forever.
I’ve seen the news from various countries and it seems like nobody in Mexico left home, like millions are wearing face masks and that people are genuinely scared and concerned. They also report over a thousand people infected with the virus and many others infected all over the world, including 75 cases in New York.
Yesterday I finally had to go out and near my house and out of a hundred people (I tried to count) about five were wearing the masks. Nobody was really talking about it either, in another area, a more crowded one more people were wearing them but activities seemed as normal as they are during days when there’s no school. Stores and restaurants, despite reports, were mostly open.
Some of my neighbours are using the opportunity to have more fun than usual, two guys in their mid-twenties have spent the last 5 days coming and going and even had a gathering with their friends that lasted several hours.
I have never experienced a «epidemic emergency» before so I have no clue if they all work the same way. I remember during the SARS incident that all we saw were images of empty streets and people wearing gloves and masks, Where they all really doing that?
So far 20 cases of swine flu have been confirmed, out of those 1,300+ people initially reported to be hospitalized: Over 900 (hmm) where discharged, a few hundreds remain in the hospital and those 130 deceased nobody knows yet what caused their death.
Twenty people dead and the newspapers in the USA were asking if this was «the big one» and suggesting there could be millions dead.
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April 28, 16:27 PM
«There are thousands»
It’s only in the past 3 days that messages in several boards, forums and newspapers have appeared reporting thousands of deaths. The messages supposedly come from doctors, nurses or people «very close» to them who also claim the government doesn’t allow those deaths to be known or reported. I asked about those thousands of dead bodies but so far have not received an answer.
The messages lack dates, places or any other kind of specific info like the ages of those deceased, how many days they were ill or how long they were ill before they died. Yesterday a new one appeared saying just one hospital had lost many doctors and nurses «a few hours ago», the name of the hospital wasn’t given and they mostly seem to use a lot of words to say things like «we’re not allowed to say anything» or «their relatives are not allowed to talk about this».
One, two, three messages I understand, but dozens carefully placed (if it’s a leftist newspaper: «That illegitimate president is hiding the real information from us!») and offering nothing as evidence, not even a single detail that could allow any kind of investigation (even by the independent media) is as dumb as saying that the virus could be from outer space (and just in case you don’t follow the link, that’s what a newspaper published yesterday).
I guess they don’t have a problem using public forums to spread panic but their professional ethics stops them from posting any kind of verifiable information they have, I wouldn’t ask for their name or photo, but reporting an epidemic without any details sounds way too convenient.
(Link to a popular chain one, in english and in spanish).
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April 30
The epidemic that wasn’t
My grandfather is now blind. He experienced problems when reading so he went to a hospital run by the Mexican healthcare system (exclusively for certain kind of workers and ex-workers) and they told him he needed surgery, against the opinion of his family he decided to get it done there because it was close to where he lived and didn’t want to leave his home for many days. After the surgery and as he was leaving the hospital the doctor said he’ll see him again in 2 months. Less than a week later he had a fever and a lot of pain in various areas, including the eye, he was immediately taken to the same hospital and they sent him back home, his relatives went to a private practitioner (each person has to pay for this without the aid of the government, work or institution) and he said my grandfather had pneumonia and detachment of the retina. My grandfather did recover from the pneumonia but he is now blind. This happened last year and he still regrets not paying attention to all the people who told him to never go to the government’s hospitals (a service that isn’t free either). I’ve seen it all, relatives diagnosed with salmonella, a nervous breakdown or a cold when they had cancer, scarlet fever and Bell’s Palsy respectively, and if it had only been that, but some had to deal with much more than a wrong diagnosis.
People in this country aren’t used to go to the doctor, it’s expensive and so are medicines which is why a lot of people self-medicate. Only a small percent of the population has access to «free» healthcare provided by the government (around 36%) and young people are not as likely to have this amazing benefit because after a certain age, even if one of his/her parents is given SS for his whole family it only includes a spouse. Also, young people are not as likely to have a good job to pay for a doctor and medicines.
Healthcare provided by the Mexican government is not, has never and probably won’t ever be efficient.
Cancún has been reported as being the place where most foreigners caught the «influenza porcina» but everything there remains open.
An illness spread due to ineptitude. I’m sure deaths are higher than 7 but it’s amazing how far an attempt to hide incompetence and a need for a distraction managed to get.