EXPERTS ASSAIL Mexico’s lack of testing.
MEXICO CITY — Mexico has started taking tougher measures against the coronavirus after weeks of its president hugging followers and saying religious medals would protect him. Some experts warn the sprawling country of 129 million people is acting too late and testing too little to prevent the type of crisis unfolding across the border in the United States.
Last week, Mexico banned nonessential government work as confirmed cases climbed, but it took until late Monday to extend that to other business sectors and to bar gatherings of more than 50 people. By Tuesday, Mexico had reported nearly 1,100 confirmed cases and at least 28 deaths.
Experts say those figures greatly understate the true number of infections. Mexico has done far less testing than many other countries — fewer than 10,000 tests. New York state alone had performed more than 205,000 tests by Tuesday. There were also signs the virus may be far more pervasive in Mexico than the limited testing shows — three state governors have already tested positive for coronavirus.
“Politics is very, very much involved in the decision-making going on right now,” said Janine Ramsey, an infectious disease expert who works for Mexico’s National Public Health Institute, a federal research agency, and has spent 35 years of her public health career in Mexico.
“Mexico, politically, does not value scientific evidence. Why? Because it takes decision-making away from the politicians,” Ramsey said.
“For most of us, especially those of us who work with infectious pathogens, there is absolutely no excuse not to test because you cannot predict a) the response, b) the velocity of transmission, or c) the vulnerability of people” to becoming infected or to infecting others, she said.
“February and March is when we should have been testing everybody,” Ramsey said.
Dr. Joseph Eisenberg, chair of the Epidemiology Department at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, agreed. “Testing is really our eyes, otherwise we’re kind of blind,” he said.
“The only way you can really understand where the disease is and where you really need to focus your energies with respect to control is to be able to know where the infections are,” he said. “And the only way to know that is through testing.”
The Mexican government has defended its policies, saying that its robust health surveillance system gives it a good idea of how the epidemic is evolving and that health experts are charting the country’s fight against the virus. Its focus now, it says, is keeping people at home to avoid a rapid spread that would quickly overwhelm the health care system.
“We’re making an energetic, emphatic, unmistakable call: Stay at home,” said Hugo Lopez-Gatell, the government’s coronavirus spokesman. “It’s urgent, it’s our last opportunity to do it, and do it now.”
Still, despite some tougher measures by Mexican states that have imposed quarantines enforced by police, the federal call to stay home remains voluntary, with no talk of penalties.
And although Mexico and the U.S. agreed last month to restrict traffic at their shared border, the ban applies only to people who cross for tourism, recreation or other nonessential activity. Mexican border communities have complained that Mexico was not restricting anyone from entering, and residents in one city even blocked the border crossing with their vehicles to try to stop traffic from the U.S.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has maintained a relaxed public attitude despite the increasing alarm sounded by his health officials. He flew commercial to the western state of Sinaloa on Sunday, where he shook hands with residents, including the mother of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
“Coronavirus isn’t the plague,” the president declared in a video message on social media. And although he has met with people diagnosed weeks later with the virus, he hasn’t been tested because he hasn’t experienced symptoms, his spokesman said.
Some experts bemoaned the mixed messages.
“Ideally we’d see all public figures taking the actions that health authorities are calling for,” said Mauricio Rodriguez, a professor of medicine and spokesman for the coronavirus commission of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The measures announced Monday are “too late,” said Dr. Miguel Betancourt, president of the Mexican Society of Public Health. Those moves should have come two weeks earlier when the curve of infections began to steepen.
“We still have time to avoid an outbreak that grows out of control, but we all have to do our part,” he said.
And complacency is not just in Mexico.
Last week, the World Health Organization scolded countries for “squandering” their chances to stop the virus from gaining a foothold. It said countries should have reacted more aggressively two months ago, including implementing wider testing and stronger surveillance measures.
Brice de le Vingne, who leads covid-19 operations for Doctors Without Borders in Belgium, and others say Europe’s approach to combating the new coronavirus was initially too lax and was severely lacking in epidemiological basics like contact tracing, an arduous process in which health officials physically track down people who have come into contact with those who are infected to monitor how and where the virus is spreading.
Outbreak experts say Europe’s hospital-centric systems, lack of epidemic experience and early complacency are partly to blame for the pandemic’s tear across the continent.
“If you have cancer, you want to be in a European hospital,” de le Vingne said. “But Europe hasn’t had a major outbreak in more than 100 years, and now they don’t know what to do.”