Food and the Flu in Mexico: Prices Tell All
Published May 6, 2009 by Rachel Laudan
Percentage rise in price in Mexican supermarkets from29 April to 5 May
Chlorox 234
Mayo 27.7
Eggs 12.5
Fideos 21.6
Beans 54
Guavas 40 (on account of their high vitamin C content)
Average number of carts in line for each cashier last weekend 15
Fall in sales of pork 70-90%
Fall in price of live pigs 22 pesos to 11 pesos (per kilo presumably)
Number of people directly employed by the pork industry 350,000
Source: Reforma, AM 6th May 2006
Filed under Flu,Food Politics,Life in Mexico
Posts
God. I almost wrote ‘sickening’ as a comment but that would have been a bad pun.
It will be hard on people with few resources.
There is growing concern and evidence about how this health ‘crisis’ is hitting poor people worst in Mexico.
For a good, and increasingly referenced, article from El Pais (in Spanish) which looks at why people in Mexico have died from this virus and very few in other countries, and the inequalities of the Mexican health system, have a look at:
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/servicio/salud/complice/virus/elpepisoc/20090503elpepisoc_4/Tes
The economic fallout (businesses closed, jobs lost, wages reduced) from the flu situation is far worse than the illness. Repercussions will continue for much longer than the so-called epidemic lasted. Rumors abound here in Morelia, but few believe that there was a threat of pandemic. And NO ONE I know has met anyone who was sick, or who even knows someone who was sick.
Will we ever know the truth?
Cristina
chlorox – is that something like chlorine disinfectant?
sounds like there is some kind of deliberate ploy against low-income earners
Hi Paul, Thanks for the link. I think it would have been very surprising had the flu not hit the poor worst. That’s one of the very sad facts of life. I guess for me the good thing is that the Mexican health system is improving and that Mexico reacted quickly.
Cristina, my experience is different because I do know people who have been sick though whether with this kind of influenza or some other is just not known. I hear many rumors too. And I know that governments here have not always served the people well, shall we say. But I find it very hard to imagine that it was in any government’s self interest (let along the interest of the country) to undertake a policy that would clearly create economic problems at all levels of society and in many different sectors (exempting masks and bleach of course). I do have a little theory about why the reaction was so prompt that I have confided in a couple of people and will triumphantly take credit for should it turn out to have anything to it.
Simply bleach, Maria (chloro here, chlorox in the US). People were advised to wipe all surfaces with bleach, hence the run on the bottles. The rising prices are supposed to fall again. The figures are actually from Mexico City and the State of Mexico (much of it part of the conurbation). Quite what the mechanism was for such dramatic rises in supermarket chains (most figures from Comercial Mexicana and Chedraui) I am not sure.
Let’s hope prices fall as quickly as they rose. It’s the longer term effects that are really going to hurt.
Rachel.
Here is a good article by the editor-in-chief of the Mexican law review, which, whilst it is not advocating one of the variants of conspiracy theory that abound at the moment, does look critically at the government’s response to the flu crisis in a a wider context.
http://www.slate.com/id/2217017/pagenum/all/
And here is a witty view of “An A-Z of the swine flu epidemic in Mexico City from an armchair perspective”.
The letter ‘A’ is for Apocalyptic Doom Scenarios and Conspiracy Theories
http://www.vanessaable.com/Vanessa_Able/Vanessa_Able_Recent_Work/Entries/2009/5/5_An_a-z_of_the_swine_flu_epidemic_in_mexico_city_from_an_armchair_perspective.html
Hello,
I am a college student who was signed up to study abroad in Guanajuato starting may 24th, and my parents (and I myself also, somewhat) are worried about the swine flu (especially as many of the people who died or got very sick were young and healthy, from what I understand). Can you please give your opinion, as a resident of the area, on how safe it is to travel there? And even aside from that.. is life getting back to normal now that schools and businesses have opened back up? Or would it be better to just drop it and visit what sounds like an amazing place another year?
Thanks for these Paul. This debate will go on for a long time, I suspect.