Today’s front page headlines in the paper, La Jornada: The 35 thousand restaurants in the capital have been closed [until May 5th]. There have been 22 deaths in the capital and 12 in the state of San Luis Potosi; there are 150 suspected cases in 8 states. The price of pork has fallen by 80%. Classes have been canceled in the entire country [not just in the capital, whose classes have been canceled since last Friday]. The dead number 149 [as of this morning when the paper was published].
The government is taking this very seriously which I find both helpful and alarming. I’m not particularly scared at this point. There are a lot of people sick and quite a number of people have died, but we’re also talking about a city of 24 million people. That’s a larger population than many countries. And this is just in one city.
The front page photo was of lines of people with overfilled grocery carts in a warehouse style grocery store. People are stocking up in case movement is limited within the country in the near future. There is also a photo of two people kissing with masks on. I suppose it makes it a safe kiss although I can’t imagine it’s a very satisfying kiss. I have noticed less PDA in general in public…one of the benefits of this flu scare. I imagine that the people that make the masks are also making a killing.
There were two deaths blamed on the earthquake yesterday, though both deaths were caused by heart attacks.
I went on the metro this morning (sorry Mom) and it is still being used. Less than normal, but it was still fairly full. The paper this morning said that the director of the Metro system here in DF has not discarded the possibility of a partial or full suspension of the service. If that were to happen, I think it would pretty effectively shut the city down. I wonder how this is affecting the millions of people who depend on their day-to-day incomes to eat and put a roof over their heads. I imagine that a lot of those people are the ones who work in restaurants and in public spaces.
Rodrigo said,
April 28, 2009 @ 10:38 pm
Hi there, Im following ur posts from today please stay strong
I just have recived some information from a friend living in Mexicali, he told me that most of the people who had died also had another pathologies like bulimia, in few words people who was already in weak conditions… I hope that helps
P.D : U can understand spanish ? It would really help a lot ^^
Greetings from Peru