As someone who worked in and with the Mexican government for many years, I wish to congratulate you for your timely article highlighting the fact that Mexico is being devastated by the Covid pandemic (A Mexican tragedy: country’s crippling Covid crisis comes into sharp focus, 3 April).
The death rate is now the highest in the world. The rollout of the vaccination programme, with its reliance on the Sputnik vaccine, has been chaotic. Hospitals have reached breaking point. The mayor of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum, and other entities cannot rely on the federal government led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador to allow her and colleagues to institute a coherent and sustainable policy.
When it reaches the point that the rector of one of the country’s leading universities died because there were no hospital beds and one of its most important surgeons died because of the lack of resources, there clearly is something seriously wrong.
I am greatly surprised that the British government has not taken cognisance of these facts and placed Mexico on its red list. The absence of action by the UK government is worrying.
Prof Charles Posner
Lavenham, Suffolk
