MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – It’s very hard to eat with a mask on.
Our team in Mexico City are trying very hard to abide by all the hygiene precautions that should help prevent us from catching swine flu.
It feels very rude to refuse to shake the hands of people you are interviewing, but we have been advised to touch no one.
We are spraying ourselves and even my BlackBerry with a whole host of disinfectant products I brought from the US.
And we are dutifully wearing our surgical masks. Even though the latest advice suggests the paper ones don’t do much good.
I obviously caught Jon Snow unawares on the programme the other night by wearing a mask for a live interview. But standing outside a hospital with several confirmed cases inside, it seemed like the only sensible precaution.
And it’s amazing how quickly you get used to seeing everyone in the streets, even the maids who clean your hotel room, wearing masks.
The only problem is you can’t eat while wearing a paper mask. All the restaurants in Mexico City have been ordered to close so we have not been eating among the great unmasked.
The only meals we have found have been eaten in grand isolation in our hotel rooms ordered from room service – served of course by waiters in masks.
But closing the restaurants means all the street vendors are selling more tacos and fast food than ever. So outside every hospital it’s common to see huge rows of stalls cooking and selling food – carefully prepared by the masked – and greedily consumed by the unmasked.
Even large groups of doctors stand around in white uniforms eating with bare hands, masks tucked below their chins.
Does that tell us the doctors don’t think the masks make much difference anyway? Or that hunger beats fear?
Right now I am off to the small village where the outbreak may have begun. And I have a feeling they will not all be so carefully masked there.
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Yes, Jon did seem to be taken aback, I was too actually, but I don’t blame reporters for wearing masks if that is the accepted practice in the area they are reporting from.
But if you’ve been seen on TV in Mexico wearing a mask, what happens when you come back to the UK and want to go for a pub lunch on Sunday. Do you suddenly find you’ve got the pub to yourself ?
You report with enthusiasm that you are off to the source of the virus! I suppose that is what makes a good reporter. Just take care of yourself.
Mexico is NOT confirmed to be the source of the virus yet. The virus in Mexico proves to be really strong, but only 12 of the 160 deaths are confirmed to be from swine flu.
Excellent reportage on the coverage of the initial outbreak of Swine Flu…
[...] not quite as bad in Mexico City. But I have spoken to desperate people queuing up outside hospitals, convinced they have the flu, [...]
I am in Iztapalapa and have been since January . It is very worrying that all this hysteria is ruining the ecomomy of the Mexicans. Do I wear a mask – no I do not. The advise I received from and eminent virologist was that you are much more likely to infect yourself by touching your face and fiddling with your mask with “infected” hands – which I have seen happening ALL the time here particularly with children (a lot of adults just wear the masks round their chins incidentally). The population is enormous the proportions of this disease minute in comparison. In my view the official precautions are out of all proportion to the damage they are doing to the individuals – particularly small business’s.
Once this story has passed, which will be determined by the media rather than by doctors, we should start thinking long and hard about the wider responsibility of the press for what can only be described as mass hysteria. We should accept the fact that the vast majority of today’s media is run as corporate enterprises, where the story trumps the contents, and determined by what sells rather than what makes sense. I hate to say it, but today’s media ranks on par with bankers, estate agents and lawyers, with the big exception that press freedoms lets them get away with murder.
Swine Flu is horrible but the worst disease, is that comes out from the TV, and is called paranoia… The pandemic transforms the disinformation into ignorance and the prejudice into foreign frustration. (A healthy mexican who doesn’t believe all the media says)…
Omar: Yes, Swine Flu is a horrible medical problem….But…it has a relevant chance of returning in the Winter in the Northern Hemisphere…
Sarah:
Thanks for the risks that you took in Mexico City…And, yes…it is very hard to eat with a “surgical mask on”
I am truly baffled by the tremendous and excessive coverage in my country regarding the alleged pandemic. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s website, an average of 30,000 Americans die of influenza each year, with the approximate low/high of 25,000 and 40,000 respectively. Until numbers reach these levels, the Swine Flu is not worthy of such attention. Thusly, one might consider the actual political motives behind the propaganda.
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