Oxfam on Swine flu: Mexico city is not an empty town

[Hannah Bell]

Latest from Oxfam on swine flu: Mexico City is not an empty town 28 Apr 2009 09:21:00 GMT
Source: Oxfam GB - UK

It is not as if the town is empty. But it is not as the town is living as it would on any other day. Mexico City is still in the process of discovering how sick it is.

Since the weekend, the city looks like a big hospital. Swine flu, which is all over the front pages of newspapers worldwide, takes the form of a face mask in Mexico City.

Walking around, you can find waitresses, watchmen, taxi drivers and even policemen wearing face masks that remind you of the ones doctors use in surgery. On the news, it seems as if everyone is wearing one. But it's important to take a reality check: the latest polls indicate that only 30% of the population are wearing them.

The general feeling is one of "OK, we have a problem... but we are handling it pretty well". So even though the World Health Organisation has increased the level of the emergency from 3 to 4 (on a scale of 6), people are not panicking...

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/220803/4e196890e6366544b44f60d25bb7f7ee.htm