How Feasible Is Mexico’s Re-Opening Plan?

“According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCDE), Mexico is the country within the organization that has the lowest levels of testing: at 0.4 tests per thousand inhabitants.”

On May 13th, approximately seven weeks after the Mexican federal government instituted its first policy to mitigate the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Mexican Office for Economic Affairs announced its economic plan for entering what is now being called  “the new normal.” This means that life will go on, but with limitations; the Mexican government still expects its citizens to understand they remain at risk for catching the virus. As such, citizens need to continue respecting the policies implemented by health authorities, while following distancing rules and the like, and the economic re-opening will take this as a given. The plan is a voluntary recommendation for the various states of Mexico, which means that it is not mandatory for the states to comply, and it is divided into three primary stages.

The first stage began on May 18th, with the return of public schools and work spaces for 269 municipalities across 15 states. The federal government, meanwhile, is categorizing these locations as the “municipalities of hope.” The second stage, from May 18th to May 31st will consist of preparing for the broader re-opening. In these two weeks, government institutions and private companies will develop protocols, train workers on how to adapt to the lingering risk of the virus, adjust work spaces, and implement hygienic measures. In the third stage, which will begin on June 1st, the economic re-activation begins for the rest of the country. The government will use a traffic light metric, where the light gradually changes from red to green as the situation improves in each state. Each week, at the federal government’s morning conference, the traffic light will be updated for each state.

It all sounds like a well-established plan, but there are some aspects that still raise pressing questions. The first is the way in which the federal government decided which municipalities are able to re-open, given that reliable statistics for infection rates are so lacking. According to the Office for Economic Affairs, the municipalities able to re-open are the ones that do not have active cases and are not surrounded by neighboring municipalities that have cases. As the plan was implemented on May 18th, some Mexican governors, however, decided not to re-open the economy for some of these municipalities, apparently showing concerns about the federal government’s strategy. All the while, the international community has raised concerns about the manner in which Mexico is tracking cases. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCDE), Mexico is the country within the organization that has the lowest levels of testing: at 0.4 tests per thousand inhabitants. Meanwhile, experts say that it is crucial to test in order to lift confinement restrictions.