The vaccine pipeline is clogged, hospitals are overflowing, oxygen tanks for the sick are scarce – and the toll of the dead and infected continues.
Meanwhile, restaurant workers and others took to the streets to protest protests, as the coronavirus-devastated economy in Mexico is still crater absent, without any major government stimulus package.
“It feels like a horror movie that never ends,” said Evelyn Beltrán, 39, a nurse in the city of Puebla. “What a terrible feeling of hopelessness and desperation.”
This is the gloomy panorama of Mexico almost one year after the first infected person was diagnosed here. At the time, officials promised that the country was prepared for the worst, despite the shattered health infrastructure and the large number of vulnerable citizens with diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and other ailments.
After traditional family gatherings on holiday, January was the deadliest month to date, according to official figures – which the authorities concede – a significant undercount due to a severe shortage. of virus test.
Mexico, with 165,786 official COVID-19-related deaths as of Sunday, moved up to the United States and Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University data, third place in the global lethal rankings, surpassing India, a country with more than ten times Mexico’s population.
Life in Mexico City, the national hub of the virus, sprays on a kind of insane halfway, subways and buses crammed with masked patrons, highways jammed during rush hour, but offices are largely empty, schools mostly empty and shops and cafes usually work on reduced hours. Street hawkers, a vanguard of the country’s massive informal economy, are struggling to make a living. A feeling of gloom and fatigue – mixed with a pervasive fear of getting sick – prevails, coupled with deep anxiety about what the future holds.
“My savings have been used up, and there is no one we can help,” said Gilberto Sánchez, 44, a father of two and restaurant chef in the San Angel district in southern Mexico City. More than half.
He’s one of the lucky ones: he still has a job.
According to the country’s Social Security Institute, nearly 700,000 full-time jobs have been lost since last year.
Official billboards in the hard hit Iztapalapa Districts urging residents to ‘tackle the challenge’ of fighting the virus look like cruel parodies in the devastated, densely populated community. Whole families wait in the central square for hours for free coronavirus tests, only to hear that the results will not be available for two weeks or more.
The distribution of the first groups of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in Mexico just before Christmas apparently sparked beleaguered national spirits. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador assured the authorities enough doses for all. No one has to pay.
Vaccination of vaccines was a policy and public coup for the president, which maintained a high popularity rating despite fierce criticism from health workers, economists and others about dealing with the emergency. He is rarely seen with a mask on, resists the imposition of national exclusions and was slow to endorse social distance and stay-at-home mandates.
But the initial euphoria over the arrival of the vaccine quickly faded. Mexico expected to receive about 400,000 doses a week until March, but Pfizer cut back, citing rising global demands. The country’s vaccination effort is now appearing on weak ground.
As of Saturday, the country has administered about 711,000 doses – in a country of 126 million – and stocks are scarce. The country’s more than 700,000 health workers, who are plagued, suffer nearly 200,000 infections and at least 2,850 deaths – in part, many doctors and nurses say, due to the government’s failure to provide adequate protective equipment. Health workers who were first in line for doses of Pfizer now fear there will be no one left for the required second stitch. The policy of the country was to preload the distribution of vaccines, without expecting a shortage.
“You finally see a small light at the end of the tunnel in the belief that we will all get the vaccine, then it seems that it may not be available,” said Beltrán, the nurse, who on January 21 a got first Pfizer shot. “How is it possible that this could happen?”
Now Mexico is looking at Russia, China and other sources. Last week, Mexico said it had contracted 400,000 shots of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine with Moscow to arrive later this month.
According to most accounts, a very shameful computer reservation system for vaccinations was a debacle. Lots of demand and miscellaneous errors caused several accidents. Either way, the whole process is somewhat substantial: even if they secure appointments, people have no guarantee that vaccines will be available on their prescribed days.
“This government has failed to control the pandemic, has failed in medical care, and now I’m sure it’s not going to fail in the vaccination plan,” said Carlos Valencia, 36, an engineer in Mexico City. spent a few days. tried to arrange a vaccination date for his elderly parents without success. “As always, it is our citizens who have to scrape together our fingernails to solve our health and economic problems.”
Almost daily, disturbing stories appear in the news and on social media documenting the struggle of Mexicans trying to find hospital beds or oxygen for attracted loved ones. Health authorities are investigating the case of a 48-year-old man who died outside a public hospital last week, his family said after being denied access. In a widely circulated video, it is alleged that the man had to succumb to the glass doors at the entrance of the emergency when his upset family pleaded for help. Relatives said they tried to admit him to five different hospitals without success.
For Francisco Salazar, 73, the symptoms began last month as headaches and difficulty breathing, recalls his daughter, Lorena Salazar, 42. His family took him to a pharmacy with a doctor on site. His oxygen levels were dangerously low, the doctor warned. Salazar had to be admitted to hospital immediately.
‘That’s when we Via Crucis begins, ”says the daughter, referring metaphorically to the Cross Stations, the journey of Christ on the day of his crucifixion.
The family brought Salazar to three different hospitals, but she had no space. They decided to bring him back home and give him oxygen. But no one was available at the outlets, now overloaded with the demand of COVID-19 victims. The pernicious black market has filled the void. Someone offered a tank for more than $ 3,000 – more than ten times the price before pandemic. The family could not raise the money.
“My father got worse – his lips turned blue,” the daughter recalls.
The family eventually found a slit in a public hospital. But they had to wait in line with other desperate people and fill out paperwork.
“The next day,” said the daughter, “the hospital informed us that our father had died.”
The death certificate lists COVID-19 as the “probable” cause of his death on January 23.
“I feel anger, rage, sadness, guilt – I feel terrible because I could no longer do for my father,” Lorena Salazar said sobbing. ‘I wonder if it would be different if we did not lose so much time looking for a hospital or finding oxygen. But we will never know. I just hope my dad understands and forgives us. ”
President López Obrador, who is himself infected, announced last week that his latest test results were negative and that his symptoms were mild. He is expected to be in the public eye again in the coming days after two weeks of isolation.
‘We must continue to face these two crises, health, [crisis], the pandemic – and the economic crisis, ”the president said in a characteristic uplifting video address of the National Palace. “We are doing well. … I trust in the future. ‘
Sánchez is a special correspondent.