Mexico City is a place where the feeling is that the "end is near". This sense of impending doom is part of a longstanding tradition: even great pre-Colombian cities like Teotihuacan or Chichen Itza were suddenly abandoned for reasons that are unknown. Although the city formerly known as Tenochtitlan is still going strong after almost seven centuries, its own population lives in constant fear of sudden demise. In fact, if Mexico City hasn't been destroyed by proxy in disaster movies it's only because the national film industry lacks the kind of production money needed for monsters to crush buildings or UFOs to invade.
More realistic conjecture as to just how this apocalypse will take place vary, but all of them are imminent: 20 million people buried under our own garbage, poisoned by the air we've polluted, dying of thirst because our drinking water has run out, flooded with toxic waste once our sewer system collapses under the weight of the downtown area (which, incidentally, is sinking into the ground). Some envision a volcanic apocalypse, courtesy of Popocatepetl. Or an earthquake worse than the "Big One" back in 1985.
But no one was expecting swine flu.
Perhaps because of our alarmist tendencies, "We interrupt this programme," is not something you generally hear on TV here in Mexico City. One wouldn't want to start a panic, after all. Yet in recent months, there have been two such occasions. The first was last November, during the US presidential elections, when President-elect Obama's acceptance speech was cut short so newscasters could inform us that secretary of the interior Juan Camilo Mouriño had been killed in a plane crash. The second was last Thursday at 11pm, when President Calderón's cabinet announced that all public and private schools would be closed the next day, keeping more than seven million students and 420,000 teachers home in order to forestall the spread of a mysterious strain of influenza, which had claimed only 20 lives nationwide at that point (as of this morning, there have been 103 deaths nationwide, including 15 in Mexico City.)
Mistrust of government is a major theme in Mexico's history. It forms part of the legacy of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power for 71 years when conservative National Action Party (PAN) candidate Vicente Fox was elected president in 2000. Despite efforts to wipe out corruption and foster transparency, the federal switch from PRI to PAN hasn't done much to assuage a longstanding popular conviction that government officials are looking out for their own best interests, rather than those of the Mexican people.
One by-product of kleptocracy, for better or worse, has been the development of strong grassroots networks. If local police aren't providing protection, you create an armed guard. If a two-dollar-a-day minimum wage won't make ends meet, you create an informal market that equals the national economy in size. And if the government suddenly decides to shut down all the schools the night before, you take it upon yourself to call every parent you know.
The grapevine rose to the challenge last Thursday in record time, although it bordered on overkill: my phone was still ringing when I unplugged it at 3am.
Predictably, by the next day, alarm had become panic. Despite the government's good intentions in implementing the school quarantine as a drastic but necessary measure to prevent the spread of the virus, workplaces were flooded with children because most parents get only 10 days of holiday leave each year and had no alternative but to bring the kids to work. Supermarkets were overwhelmed by orders from people too scared to leave home who wanted to stock up on groceries. Public health centres and hospitals attracted long lines of people, because who among us didn't feel we had at least two of the symptoms described by the secretary of health?
Surgical masks had become all the rage overnight. Many in Mexico City keep them on hand because of poor air quality, so they'll be prepared in case of what's known here as an "environmental contingency." Even so, local newspaper El Universal estimated that 500 such masks were being sold per hour the morning after the announcement. Masks weren't just for doctors anymore, but for patients as well. As if wearing them would somehow make up for the inadequacies of an already overburdened public health system in the throes of an epidemic.
Officials issued a list of measures, asking the public to avoid greeting each other by kissing on the cheek, as is customary when women are present. Hands were to be washed with soap and water. Residents were also told to avoid movie houses, concerts and any other public events unless absolutely necessary.
They even dared to take away football. When matches were televised at two stadiums yesterday, but no public was allowed to attend, we knew the situation must be serious.
On the whole, the government reacted swiftly and has struggled to stay one step ahead. But there have been missteps along the way. First, public health officials announced more vaccines were on the way, although they admitted they were as of yet uncertain which strains of influenza were involved and at first denied that swine flu was the culprit. When hordes of people began to show up at government clinics demanding shots, it was announced that only doctors and nurses would be provided with the vaccines, because there weren't enough to go around. Then, in response to public desperation, they said the vaccines wouldn't do us any good anyway, because they are effective in preventing the flu only when taken several months in advance.
However, there have been some entertaining moments despite all the uncertainty. Fostered by the aforementioned mistrust of all things governmental, conspiracy theories have started to bloom: anonymous online comments regarding an article that appeared in left-wing newspaper La Jornada claimed that Obama had brought the virus with him and released it during his recent visit. Or that the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis had just invested $100m in Mexico, and was now using the population as guinea pigs. Or that this was actually a plot by Calderón to cancel the upcoming May Day protests featuring opposition leader Manuel López Obrador, who still claims that elections in 2006 were fraudulent and that he is the legitimate president of Mexico. One quipster called it a "PAN-demic" (a pun on the governing party). Another, "InfluenCIA".
All craziness aside, the fortunate with internet access to international news sources quickly became aware that this was indeed an outbreak of swine flu, with cases appearing around the world. Of course, as active members of the Mexico City grapevine, we started calling everyone we know.
