Mexico's Virus Czar Seen Playing a Dangerous Game With Numbers

Andrea Navarro, Bloomberg News

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Mexico’s Virus Czar Seen Playing a Dangerous Game With Numbers
Andrea Navarro, Bloomberg News




BC-Mexico’s-Virus-Czar-Seen-Playing-a-Dangerous-Game-With-Numbers
BC-Mexico’s-Virus-Czar-Seen-Playing-a-Dangerous-Game-With-Numbers , Andrea Navarro

(Bloomberg) --

When Mexico’s coronavirus czar said last week that case growth in the nation’s capital had stabilized, few found cause to cheer. Hugo Lopez Gatell had claimed such victories before.

“The epidemic is slowing down,” the deputy health minister declared in a May 5 press conference. Three weeks later, during his May 25 nightly briefing, he said: “We’ve flattened the curve.”

But the numbers tell a different story. A day after Lopez Gatell’s June 11 tweet about Mexico City, the nation reported a record 5,222 new cases of the deadly disease. As of Tuesday, Mexico’s infections have more than doubled since May 25 to 154,863, with a quarter of them in the capital. Deaths stand at 18,310, according to the official count.

Throughout the pandemic, Lopez Gatell has sought to diffuse public panic and support the arguments of his boss, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador -- known as AMLO -- who prioritizes the economy over sweeping lockdowns. Lopez Gatell’s nice-guy demeanor and a knack for breaking down complex ideas into easily understandable bits has helped make him the most popular official in AMLO’s administration. But, critics say, it’s also allowed him to obscure the magnitude of the crisis, endangering lives and exacerbating the outbreak.

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