The vaccine pipeline is clogged, hospitals are full, oxygen tanks for the sick are scarce – and the number of dead and infected continues to increase.
Meanwhile, restaurant workers and others have taken to the streets protesting against closures while Mexico’s coronavirus-ravaged economy continues to crater in the absence of any significant government stimulus package.
“It looks like a horror movie that never ends,” said Evelyn Beltrán, 39, a nurse in the city of Puebla. “What a terrible feeling of despair and despair.”
This is the bleak pandemic outlook that Mexico faces almost a year after the first infected person was diagnosed here. At the time, officials promised that the country was prepared for the worst, despite its tattered health infrastructure and the high proportion of vulnerable citizens with diabetes, obesity, hypertension and other diseases.
Following traditional family vacation gatherings, January was the deadliest month so far, with almost 33,000 reported COVID-19 deaths, or more than 1,000 per day, according to official figures – which, the authorities admit, represent a substantial underestimation. due to a serious lack of virus testing.
Mexico, with 165,786 official deaths related to COVID-19 as of Sunday, moved to third place in the global fatalities ranking after the United States and Brazil, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, surpassing India, a country with more 10 times that of Mexico’s population.
Life in Mexico City, the national epicenter of the virus, advances in a kind of frantic half-step, subways and buses crowded with customers wearing masks, congested highways during rush hour, but mostly empty offices, mostly empty schools and shops and cafes usually operating at reduced hours. Street vendors, at the forefront of the country’s huge informal economy, are struggling to make a living. A feeling of sadness and tiredness – mixed with a generalized fear of becoming ill – prevails, alongside a deep unease about what the future holds.
“My savings have run out and there is no one who can lend a hand,” said Gilberto Sánchez, 44, a father of two and a restaurant chef in the San Angel district of southern Mexico City, which saw its weekly wage cut. for more than half.
He’s among the lucky ones: he still has a job.
Nearly 700,000 full-time jobs have been lost since last year, according to the country’s social security institute.
Official panels in the Iztapalapa area the district urging residents to “embrace the challenge” of fighting the virus seem cruel parodies in the devastated and densely populated community. Whole families wait in line for hours in the central square for free coronavirus tests, only to be told that the results will not be available for two weeks or more.
The distribution by Mexico of the first batches of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine just before Christmas seemed to lift the beleaguered national mood. Authorities have guaranteed international manufacturers enough doses for everyone, said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Nobody would have to pay.
The launch of the vaccine seemed a political and public relations blow to the president, who maintained high levels of popularity despite fierce criticism of its treatment of the emergence of health professionals, economists and others. He is rarely seen wearing a mask, resisted the imposition of national blockades and was slow to endorse social distance and mandates to stay at home.
But the initial euphoria over the arrival of the vaccine soon dissipated. Mexico expected to receive about 400,000 doses a week by March, but Pfizer has cut it, citing rising global demand. The country’s vaccination effort now appears on thin ground.
By Saturday, the country had administered about 711,000 doses – in a country of 126 million – and supplies are running low. The priority goes to the country’s more than 700,000 health workers, who have been devastated, suffering 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. Healthcare professionals who were first in line for Pfizer doses now fear that there will be none left for the second necessary doses. The country’s policy was the initial distribution of the vaccine, not anticipating a deficit.
“You finally see a little light at the end of the tunnel, believing that we would all get the vaccine, so it turns out that it may not be available,” said Beltrán, the nurse, who received an initial injection from Pfizer on January 21. “How is it possible for this to happen?”
Mexico is now looking at Russia, China and other sources. Last week, Mexico said it had signed a contract with Moscow for 400,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, which will arrive later this month.
According to most reports, a highly praised computerized reservation system for vaccines was a disaster. High demand and several failures generated multiple failures. Anyway, the whole process is somewhat fictional: even if they guarantee consultations, people have no guarantee that vaccines will be available on the prescribed days.
“This government has failed to control the pandemic, it has failed medical care and now I am sure it will fail in its vaccination plan,” said Carlos Valencia, 36, an engineer from Mexico City who said he had spent several days trying to arrange a date for vaccine for their elderly parents to no avail. “As always, it is us, the citizens, who will have to shave with our nails to solve our health and economic problems.”
Almost daily, distressing stories appear in the news and on social media, documenting the struggles of Mexicans trying to find hospital beds or oxygen for their loved ones. Health officials are investigating the case of a 48-year-old man who died in front of a public hospital last week, his family said, after he was banned from hospital. A widely publicized video was intended to show the man succumbing to the glass doors at the entrance to the ER while his family begged for help. Relatives said they tried unsuccessfully to put him in five different hospitals.
For Francisco Salazar, 73, the symptoms started last month such as headache and difficulty breathing, recalled his daughter, Lorena Salazar, 42. The family took him to a pharmacy with a doctor on site. His oxygen levels were dangerously low, the doctor warned. Salazar needed to be hospitalized immediately.
“It’s when our Via Crucis has begun, ”said the daughter, referring metaphorically to the Stations of the Cross, Christ’s journey on the day of his crucifixion.
The family took Salazar to three different hospitals, she said, but none had space. They decided to bring him home and give him oxygen. But none were available at supply points, now flooded with demand from COVID-19 victims. A pernicious black market has filled the void. Someone offered a tank for the equivalent of more than $ 3,000 – more than 10 times the pre-pandemic price. The family was unable to raise the money.
“My father was getting worse – his lips were turning blue,” recalls the daughter.
The family finally found a place in a public hospital. But they had to wait in line with other desperate people and fill out the 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, anger, sadness, guilt – I feel really bad that I couldn’t do more for my father,” said Lorena Salazar, sobbing. “I wonder if it wouldn’t have been different if we hadn’t spent so much time looking for a hospital, or trying to find oxygen. But we will never know. I just hope my dad understands and forgives us. “
President López Obrador, himself infected, announced last week that the latest test results were negative and his symptoms were mild. He should be back in the public eye for the next few days, after two weeks of isolation.
“We have to move forward facing these two crises – health [crisis], the pandemic – and the economic crisis, ”said the president in a characteristically optimistic video speech by the National Palace. “We will be fine.… I have faith in the future.”
Sánchez is a special correspondent.