The Two Extremes

José Antonio Crespo closed last week with the observation that Calderón has superimposed heroic rhetoric from the Cinco de Mayo onto the flu epidemic:

Returning to the present day, and the battle that we recently "won" against that flu virus, the message of Calderón was that the "medical weapons covered themselves in glory", although it is still being discussed if there was precision and proportionality in the measures taken and if we were properly prepared to confront an unknown virus --in contrast to what Felipe said-- given the dismantling, in the "neoliberal era", of laboratories and specialized instruments, and having an ineffective network of information (in other words, "the system shut down") and scientific research increasingly ignored, in addition to a great socioeconomic injustice in the provision of sanitary services and the rejection of many sick patients and much medical negligence. But we haven't only won this battle against viral invaders but we have also, in our humble trench, "we have defended all of humanity from the propagation of this virus", an effort that will be rewarded with a "tourist quarantine" that will damage still more our overburdened economy.

On the other extreme, it is absurd and lamentable the exclamation from Andrés López Obrador: "There's no flu nor anything like it...there's no problem". With that he completely disqualified the anti-epidemic efforts --which will be subject in any case to a more rigorous evaluation-- of the federal government and Marcelo Ebrard, who took even stronger measures of precaution against the viral risk. López Obrador could generate a dangerous lack of concern in the many people who believe in him. And just how in 1863 the French returned [after the Mexicans' Cinco de Mayo victory in Puebla] and destroyed our army, the virus could return with much greater virulence--the famous "bounce", according to specialists (who remember than the flu of 1918 didn't cause many deaths in its first wave, but rather in the ones that followed.

That's the first time I remember seeing el Peje referred to as "Andrés" rather than "Andrés Manuel". AMLO's comments make you suspect that Ebrard wasn't collateral damage, but, as a leftist presidential hopeful with a growing profile who was performing well in the crisis, the primary target.