Monday, May 11, 2009

Praise Heaped

Today's edition of The Washington Post includes a strikingly flattering piece about the rave reviews Mexico's Health Secretary (referred to as the second most powerful man in the nation) is receiving: 
"I think we should all shout, 'Gracias, Mexico!' I believe the Mexicans have prevented a true pandemic from happening," said Laurie A. Garrett, senior fellow in the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Coming Plague," a book about newly emerging infectious diseases.

[Break]

If Mexico had not closed down commerce and government as it did, according to calculations by Óscar Mújica, an analyst with the Pan American Health Organization, the virus would have killed 8,605 people and put more than 30,000 people in the hospital. The death toll from swine flu stood at 48 people as of Sunday.

"Now you hear some people saying that it was an excessive response. But what people seem to forget is that the reason why this crisis is now coming down was because the initial response was so vigorous," said Julio Frenk, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Mexico's health secretary from 2000 to 2006. "I think Mexico did a great service to the rest of the global community. It gave other countries of the world time to prepare themselves."

[Break]

"I am just floored by how good their response has been. Couldn't ask more from a country, especially a poor country, a developing country," said Paul J. Gertler, professor of health services finance at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, who has worked in Mexico. "I think the whole world will be better prepared for what comes in the fall because of Mexico."
This view is solidifying as the conventional wisdom outside of Mexico much more so than inside the borders. 

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