Every night, at a televised news conference, Mexican police officer COVID-19 gives a grim update on the number of victims of the pandemic.
Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s undersecretary of health, speaks of a shortage of oxygen tanks, of hospitals almost on the verge of collapse and of health professionals who have died in greater numbers than anywhere else in the world.
Then he makes a dramatic appeal, an appeal that he uttered so many times and with such conviction that he stimulated internet memes and was even remixed in a reggaeton song: “Stay at home”.
So many in the country were nervous when photos surfaced over the weekend showing López-Gatell relaxing on a sandy Pacific beach about 800 kilometers from his Mexico City residence.
In one photo, he is seen sitting at an outdoor bar with a partner. None of them are wearing a mask. In a second photo, taken a few days earlier, on a crowded flight from Mexico City to the beach resort in southern Oaxaca, López-Gatell is seen talking on his cell phone – again, without a mask.
Now he is part of the public authority club criticized for what some consider pandemic hypocrisy. Other officers caught for not practicing what they preach include California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was scorned after attending a November birthday dinner at a Napa Valley restaurant, and Austin Mayor Steve Adler, who filmed in November a video urging his constituents not to travel – while he was on vacation in Mexico 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 during a brief break from his evening press conference, did not immediately address the controversy.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador played down the bad view.
“He has been working very, very hard,” López Obrador told reporters. “He is a very good public servant, a good specialist, a professional.”
But beach photos have sparked anger in Mexico, where officials, including López-Gatell, have repeatedly demanded citizens to sacrifice themselves since the coronavirus began to spread.
In the generally busy capital of Mexico City, non-essential businesses have been closed for weeks, leaving shopkeepers, waiters and other workers struggling to pay rent in a country where unemployment insurance does not exist. Doctors and nurses in public hospitals in the city were asked to give up their Christmas vacation to meet an increase in the number of patients.
“Do you know who deserves a break and doesn’t take one?” asked political analyst Paula Sofía Vázquez on Twitter. “Doctors and health personnel who have not stopped since March, who are isolated from their families and who also know that, thanks to collective irresponsibility, the worst days of the pandemic are coming.”
“He is traveling at the worst time of the pandemic,” said political journalist Denise Dresser on López-Gatell’s Twitter. “He is far from where he should be: with health personnel, running the vaccination campaign, setting an example.”
Once an unknown bureaucrat, López-Gatell has become a political rock star in recent months, with even his romantic life largely covered by the Mexican media.
While López Obrador refused to wear a mask and downplayed the severity of the virus, López-Gatell served science-based reminders every night of the risks of the pandemic, which earned him comparisons with Dr. Anthony Fauci in the United States.
Still, López-Gatell has faced growing criticism about a pandemic containment strategy that many believe has failed.
In the early days of the virus, Mexico made a calculation: instead of spending on testing and tracking contacts, the focus would be on increasing the hospital’s capacity. Transmissions skyrocketed and the hospital’s additional capacity was insufficient.
Mexico has the world’s highest death rate per 100 people infected with the coronavirus, according to the Coronavirus Research Center at Johns Hopkins University. Nearly nine people die for every 100 confirmed cases here, compared to two in the United States.
A woman in Tijuana whose relative died of COVID-19.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
The country recorded more than 127,200 deaths from COVID-19 as of Monday – the fourth highest number of deaths worldwide, according to the Coronavirus Research Center. Researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico say the real numbers can be two to four times higher.
In August, nine of Mexico’s 32 governors called for López-Gatell’s resignation, alleging “erratic treatment of the epidemic and a lack of efficient response”. The request, which came from members of political parties who oppose the ruling Partido Morena de López Obrador, was ignored by López-Gatell, and the president suggested that he was politically motivated.
López-Gatell is not the only one in Mexico to be publicly embarrassed for his actions during the pandemic. Increasingly, Mexicans are pointing to an increase in the number of travelers from the United States, which appears to have contributed to an increase in coronavirus cases and deaths in some regions. After a recent dance music festival in the Caribbean seaside 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 are available – mainly for beach resorts.
An American prosecutor famous for hosting an annual party in Palm Springs faced criticism after organizing a festival last weekend in Puerto Vallarta. Local media reported that the event drew thousands, many from Southern California. Videos showed dance floors filled with men without a shirt and without a mask, despite the fact that events in bars and clubs are currently banned in the city.
“It was difficult to contain all these tourists,” said Puerto Vallarta Mayor Arturo Dávalos in a television interview on Monday. “We hope it doesn’t cause infections to increase.”
Cecilia Sanchez, from The Times’ Mexico City office, contributed to this report.