Flu-stricken Mexican capital back in business
Mexico City’s health secretary announced that all businesses – including sports arenas, dance halls, movie theatres and all restaurants – will be allowed to operate today.
But Armando Ahued said businesses must screen for ill people and make surgical masks mandatory for employees and customers.
“We’re returning to normal,” said Eugenio Velis, 57, a graphic artist sipping coffee with friends in the trendy Condesa neighbourhood.
But Ernesto Viloria, 40, worried about his children using public transit and returning to school.
“Nothing can be the same,” insisted Mr Viloria, who works in finance. “The virus continues, even though it’s declining, and we have to pay attention.”
Mexico’s government said the shutdown reduced the spread of the virus at its epicentre. Deaths have slowed as the country mobilised an aggressive public health response to the epidemic that has sickened thousands in 24 countries.
Sweden and Poland were the latest countries to confirm swine flu cases, both in women who had recently visited the US
In Mexico, the confirmed death toll reached 42 yesterday – mostly as backlogged cases got tested, but also two new deaths on Tuesday. It also confirmed more than 1,100 nonfatal cases.
Some 80% of Mexico’s swine flu infections have been in and around the capital, and a majority of the dead were between 20 and 39 years old.
There was some concern that Mexico was relaxing too quickly, especially with high schools and universities reopening today, and primary schools reopening next week.
While “filter teams” prepared to screen out sick students and teachers, epidemiologists warn that the virus has spread throughout Mexico, and could bounce back.
“We have seen a tendency (of the outbreak) to diminish but not disappear,” the nation’s Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova acknowledged.
