Every COVID 19-point man in Mexico gives a bleak version of the toll of the pandemic at a television news conference.
Hugo López-Gatell, Mexican secretary of health, speaks of a shortage of oxygen tanks, hospitals nearing breaking point and health workers dying in numbers higher than elsewhere in the world.
Then he makes a dramatic plea, an appeal he has made so often and with so much conviction that it has spurred internet memes and even been conveyed in a reggaeton song: “Stay at Home.”
So it hit a nerve for many people in the country when photos appeared over the weekend in which López-Gatell relaxed on a sandy Pacific beach almost 800 km from his home in Mexico City.
In one photo, he is seen at a bar outside with a female companion. No one wears a mask. In a second photo taken a few days earlier on a busy flight from Mexico City to the beach resort in southern Oaxaca, López-Gatell is seen on a cell phone – again, no mask.
Now he is among the club of public authorities criticized for what some see as hypocrisy of pandemics. Other officials caught for not practicing what they preach include California Government Gavin Newsom, who was despised after attending a birthday dinner at a Napa Valley restaurant in November, and the mayor of Austin. , Steve Adler, who filmed a video in November urging his constituents not to travel – while on a Mexican vacation in Cabo San Lucas.
Red Cross paramedics help transport a man with COVID-19 in Tijuana, Mexico.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
López-Gatell, who apparently flew to the beach on New Year’s Eve while on a short break from his nightly news conference, did not immediately address the controversy.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador downplayed the bad optics.
“He worked very, very hard,” López Obrador told reporters. “He is a very good civil servant, a good specialist and a professional.”
But the beach photos sparked outrage in Mexico, where authorities, including López-Gatell, have repeatedly demanded civilian casualties since the coronavirus began spreading.
In the usually bustling capital of Mexico City, non-essential businesses are left closed for weeks, leaving shopkeepers, waiters and other workers scrambling to pay rent in a country where unemployment insurance does not exist. Doctors and nurses at public hospitals in the city have been asked to give up their Christmas holidays to lead to an increase in patients.
“Do you know who deserves a break and does not take one?” asked political analyst Paula Sofía Vázquez on Twitter. “Doctors and health professionals who have not stopped since March, who have been isolated from their families and who also know that the worst days of the pandemic are looming due to collective irresponsibility.”
“He is traveling at the worst moment of the pandemic,” political writer Denise Dresser said on Twitter of López-Gatell. “He is far from where he needs to be: with health professionals, conduct the vaccination campaign, set an example.”
Once an unknown bureaucrat, López-Gatell has become a political rock star in recent months, and even his romantic life is carefully covered by the Mexican media.
While López Obrador refused to wear a mask and downplayed the severity of the virus, López-Gatell offered scientifically based reminders every night about the risks of the pandemic and compared him to dr. Anthony Fauci made in the United States.
Nevertheless, López-Gatell has been increasingly criticized for a pandemic mitigation strategy that many believe has failed.
In the early days of the virus, Mexico made a calculation: instead of spending on testing and contact detection, it would focus on increasing hospital capacity. Transmissions increased, and the extra capacity in the hospital was not enough.
According to the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University, Mexico has the highest death rate in the world per 100 people infected with the coronavirus. Nearly nine people die for every 100 confirmed cases here, compared to two in the United States.
A woman in Tijuana whose family member died of COVID-19.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
According to the Coronavirus Research Center, the country recorded more than 127,200 COVID-19 deaths as of Monday – the fourth highest death toll worldwide. Researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico say the true numbers could be two to four times higher.
In August, nine of Mexico’s 32 governors called for López-Gatell to resign, citing “a volatile response to the epidemic and a lack of effective response”. The plea, which comes from members of political parties opposed to Lopez Obrador’s Morena party, was ignored by López-Gatell and the president suggested it was politically motivated.
López-Gatell is not the only one in Mexico who is publicly ashamed of actions during the pandemic. Mexicans are increasingly pointing to an increase in travelers from the United States that has apparently contributed to an increase in coronavirus cases and deaths in some regions. After a recent dance music festival in the Caribbean beach town of Tulum, dozens of participants fell ill.
More than half a million Americans flew to Mexico in November – the most recent month for which data is available – mostly to beach resorts.
A U.S. promoter known for hosting an annual party in Palm Springs has come under fire after arranging a party in Puerto Vallarta last weekend. Local media reported that the event drew thousands, many from Southern California. On videos, dance floors are teeming with shirtless, maskless men, despite the fact that events in pubs and clubs are currently banned in the city.
“It was difficult to keep all these tourists in check,” Puerto Vallarta Mayor Arturo Dávalos said in a television interview on Monday. “We hope it does not increase infections.”
Cecilia Sanchez in The Times’ Mexico City office contributed to this report.