Under pressure, Mexico set to reopen economy
MEXICO CITY— President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged last week to begin reopening Mexico’s economy this week — under pressure at home and from U.S. officials — even as the country saw its largest one-day jump in coronavirus cases, hospitals are reeling, and testing remains inadequate.
Economy Secretary Graciela Marquez said the move would be “gradual, orderly and cautious,” and that by Monday, industries like construction, mining and car and truck manufacturing would be allowed to resume.
A lockdown, which includes mandatory closures of “nonessential” businesses and began in March, will remain in place, but work in the industries Marquez cited will be allowed to begin again because Mexico’s top advisory body on the pandemic, the General Health Council, said recently it had decided to classify them as “essential activities.”
Mexico has been under pressure from U.S. officials to reopen auto plants, in particular, because without them, integrated supply chains would make it hard for plants in the
U.S. and Canada to reopen. At home, the National Alliance of Small Business Owners has also complained about lockdown measures, often imposed, quasi-legally, at the local level.
But others in Mexico fear a reopening, saying the measures were too long in coming and have been in place for too short a period. The announcement came as hospitals from Mexico City to its northern border with the U.S. were nearing overload, and manufacturing workers in border cities like Ciudad Juarez had only recently been sent home after demanding a shutdown in protests prompted by the wildfire spread of the coronavirus through their plants.
Mexican health officials last week reported the country’s largest single-day jump in covid-19 case numbers, with 1,997 new cases and 353 deaths, bringing the total to over 38,000 confirmed cases and almost 4,000 deaths.
Officials have acknowledged the actual number of infections is many times that. Mexico has done relatively little testing, with about 120,000 tests reported so far in a country of almost 130 million. That is equivalent to only about 0.6 people per 1,000 inhabitants tested, the lowest rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
That will make it hard to judge whether the reopening will risk a renewed upsurge in cases — and to see one coming if it does. Marquez, the economy secretary, said that schools and businesses would be allowed to reopen in 269 townships with no confirmed cases of covid-19 — or in about onetenth of Mexico’s 2,465 townships. They are largely located in rural areas in north-central and southeastern Mexico.
Dr. Miguel Betancourt, president of the Mexican Society of Public Health, cautioned against putting too much stock in the safety of opening places with no recorded cases, given the low level of testing.
“Without a well-implemented system of monitoring or an adequate laboratory testing capacity in these areas, they don’t really know precisely what the situation is,” he said. “Just because there aren’t any cases right now doesn’t mean there won’t be later.”
‘IS IT SAFE?’
The government is also pushing to restart plants along the border known as maquiladoras that produce parts critical to the American car industry, after workers in Ciudad Juarez staged walkouts in recent weeks to get firms to shut down and send them home with full pay and despite reports from workers, companies and labor activists of dozens of deaths among employees in such plants.
Susana Prieto, a labor lawyer who advises workers at maquiladoras, said the decision showed the government was yielding to pressure from multinationals.
“Is it safe?” Prieto asked with disbelief. “It is safe to say that the president of Mexico is a puppet of Mexican and foreign [businesses] that do not care about the lives of Mexican workers?”
U.S. officials have suggested the supply chain of the North American free-trade zone could be permanently affected if Mexican factories didn’t resume production.
Christopher Landau, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, launched a Twitter campaign last month, writing: “There are risks everywhere, but we don’t all stay at home for fear we are going to get in a car accident. … The destruction of the economy is also a health threat.”
But the pressure for reopening is building as well in Mexican states where the lockdown has caused huge job losses.
Carlos Joaquin Gonzalez, the governor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo —
home to resorts like Cancun — said his state has lost 22% of its jobs after about 8 million people canceled trips to the area this year due to pandemic.
“Obviously, this requires us to think about reopening — as soon as possible,” Joaquin Gonzalez said.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and can lead to death.
Nationwide, Mexico has lost about 500,000 jobs due to the pandemic, and the auto industry appears eager to get back to work.
Volkswagen de Mexico said earlier in May that it is planning to reopen its assembly plant in Puebla state and its engine factory in Guanajuato state on June 1.
General Motors said it hadn’t fixed a date for reopening its plant, also in Guanajuato, but some workers there reported getting notices to report for work on Monday. Ford said it was waiting for government approval to reopen.
Officials also said other businesses and schools would begin to reopen. Lopez Obrador said it would be left largely up to individual states to decide how to proceed.
The government of Mexico City, which has been hardest hit by the virus and where most of the hospitals are full, announced that manufacturing and construction can restart on June 1. Restaurants and department stores can open at one-third capacity starting June 15, and sports events can be played without spectators. Schools will reopen sometime in August.