“A Mexican tragedy”: The Guardian’s harsh criticism of AMLO for handling COVID-19

The health crisis due to COVID-19 has placed Mexico among the countries with the highest number of deaths from the disease. It was recently announced that the official death toll would officially rise to 310,000 victims., suggesting “A calamity of similar proportions” to that of the United States and Brazil under the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), assured The Guardian.

These numbers have been downplayed by the Mexican government. “López Obrador has downplayed the virus, has continued to tour his country and has embraced his followers. Containment measures such as lockdowns, social distancing and masks have been resisted”, recalled the British media in its publication entitled“ A Mexican tragedy: country’s crippling Covid crisis comes into sharp focus ”.

On the other hand, on April 21, the Undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion, Hugo López-Gatell, who is also a spokesman for the pandemic in the country, told the Financial Times that the government’s conscience was “very calm” and that it made no sense to think during a pandemic life would be normal.

However, throughout the pandemic, various experts have pointed out that the government’s approach “helped create a disaster of unnecessarily large proportions.”

So much the undersecretary and the president contracted COVID-19 in the framework of the second wave of the disease in the country.

In January, the executive announced that he had contracted the disease, while the spokesman for the pandemic was caught on the beaches of Oaxaca despite constantly urging citizens to stay home.

The former Secretary of Health, Eduardo Gonzáles-Pier, told journalists Analy Nuño and Tom Phillips that “When we think of the worst outcomes, I think now you rank Mexico, Brazil and the United States together ”by the way governments responded to the pandemic.

He assured that, before Joe Biden became president of the United States, the political leaders of the three countries, Bolsonaro, Trump and López Obrado, had several similarities in their actions on the pandemic, as they demonstrated “denial, late response, minimization of severity, and also the idea of ​​not suspending activities”.

González-Pier, for his part, pointed out that the country could have avoided between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths with a different approach: “This is the type of damage that has been done.”

Beyond the attitude of the government, there was also, according to the British newspaper, “The chronic lack of investment in medical care that led to hospitals not equipped or with adequate staff”, in addition to the high rates of diabetes in the country.

“It just turned out to be a virus that was particularly cruel to the kind of chronic conditions that Mexicans they have a high prevalence,” said the former health secretary, referring that Mexico has one of the highest rates of diabetes and obesity.

Noted that the Mexican population continues to be “very vulnerable” to the disease and said he was not sure that the country is going through the worst.

However, González-Pier said he was encouraged by the vaccination campaign that has currently slowed down the pandemic in the country, although It is feared that the Easter holidays, which have gathered thousands on the beaches, will generate a third painful wave like the one that shakes Chile.