Meeting the COVID-19 Pandemic: Complex Health, Socioeconomic, Gender, and Cultural Nexuses in Mexico

Abstract

COVID-19 met Mexico with a fragmented healthcare system, where governmental and private corruption limited the reconstruction of hospitals after the earthquakes in 2017. Monopolies in the purchase of drugs, lack of trained medical personnel, badly equipped hospitals, obesity, and chronic diseases produced excess mortality from SARS-COV-2. Further, industrialized countries monopolized vaccines and protective gear against the pandemic and the UN-COVAX system for buying them failed. Mexico was forced to purchase vaccines worldwide at speculative prices. The country received also specialists from Cuba, purchased ventilators, trained hospital staff, and separated hospitals only for COVID-19 attention, while 145 private hospitals provided medical attention at public prices. In December 2020 first vaccines arrived and in July 2022 71.3% of the adult population was immunised. The government rejected the pressure of the International Monetary Fund for supporting big companies. Instead, direct money transfers for survival to elderlies, students, youth in apprenticeship, and peasants planting timber and fruit trees alleviated rising poverty and unemployment during the confinement. The cash for youth also moved them away from organised crime and drug production. Agreements with supermarkets and producers lowered the inflation in basic food prices and systematic increases in minimum wage improved Mexicans' purchasing power parity. Less corruption permitted the construction of new megaprojects in the poorest regions. Infrastructure in these marginalised regions recovered formal jobs, generating also labour for Central American migrants, thus reducing the political tensions on both national borders. Additionally, energy transition and subsidies of internal oil prices strengthened economic stability and the peso against the US dollar without new foreign debts. This rigorous macroeconomic policy, free vaccination, the start of a new public health system, and direct cash transfers allowed Mexico to recover in March 2022 from the 12.5 million lost jobs. The unemployment rate was in March 2023 2.4%. The complex nexuses of socioeconomic, health, youth, and gender policies promoted also an alternative social care system, reduced excess mortality and improved the living conditions of the impoverished population in the indigenous southern regions.