Nathaniel Parish Flannery. Latin America analyst & writer. ✏️&📷: The Guardian, @rouleur & New York Times. 🎙️Host: @ModernMexico Podcast. @ColumbiaSIPA. 🚲🇲🇽
Feb 17, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Imagine for a moment that Mexico is governed by a deeply flawed leader whose ambition vastly exceeds his ability.
In this scenario, 🇲🇽 has a leader who revels in the ceremonial aspects of government, embraces pet projects & shirks the difficult tasks of reforming under-funded institutions & implementing a strategy to bring the remote regions of the country firmly under gov't control
Dec 22, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Over the last few weeks hospitals in Mexico City have been filling up with patients.
Instead of taking emergency measures, coronavirus czar @HLGatell started calling the government's covid stoplight "inconsequential."
"Orange is the New Red" became a hashtag on Twitter.
But, last Friday @HLGatell joined Mexico City's mayor to host a disorganized press conference announcing a new lockdown in the capital.
The announcement was a garbled mess. No graphics. No clarity. No new economic assistance rollout.
Why is the @WHO warning that Mexico needs to start taking the Covid-19 pandemic more seriously?
Why does 🇲🇽's President #AMLO continue to publicly question whether masks are helpful?
I looked @ the data on 🇲🇽s first 100,000 *confirmed* covid deaths forbes.com/sites/nathanie…
In Mexico many people are scared that public hospitals won't provide them with adequate care during the pandemic.
I found that 8 in 10 covid-19 patients treated at IMSS hospitals were never intubated before they died.
Only 1 in 10 patients intubated @ IMSS hospitals survived!
Nov 10, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
According to 🇲🇽's #AMLO's rhetoric, all of his his critics are corrupt while his allies, through their support of his movement, are righteous.
@amnesty explains, "Founded last year, the National Guard was supposed to herald an end to the militarized approach to public security that left an estimated 200,000 people dead and tens of thousands missing under Mexico’s last two governments."
Nov 8, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"[Trump] was their lodestar, the man who brought fringe populists from Hungary to Brazil in from the diplomatic cold, elevating their science-dismissing, migrant-scapegoating, nationalistic message from the balcony of its greatest perch: the White House." washingtonpost.com/world/the_amer…
"Biden’s victory presents practical challenges to policies that went unchecked during Trump’s presidency, ranging from destruction in Brazil of the Amazon to democratic backsliding in Hungary & Poland to heavy-handed law enforcement under Philippine President Duterte."
"The decision [by Mexican President #AMLO's government] to not do tests, or to do as few as possible, is incomprehensible from a medical and scientific point of view." (page 20)
Sep 8, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Read this article.
What do you feel?
Rage?
Nausea?
Grief?
In 🇲🇽 the official numbers on Covid-19 cases & deaths don't come close to measuring the pandemic's full impact.
Including "excess deaths" it's possible that virus's real toll is 190K+! eluniversal.com.mx/ciencia-y-salu…
According to this analysis the real impact of Covid-19 in Mexico could be 3.15 times higher than the official tally of *confirmed* deaths.
Other countries around the world have done a MUCH better job measuring the virus's real impact.
Sep 3, 2020 • 21 tweets • 9 min read
President #AMLO & @SSalud_mx spokesman @HLGatell laud their own achievements & brag that the majority of ICU beds are available to treat patients.
They don't mention the fact that 8 out 10 Covid-19 patients in 🇲🇽 have died without being intubated.
In Mexico, President #AMLO's response to Covid-19 has been highly politicized & tragically inept.
AMLO & @HLGatell are trying to shift blame away from the government and onto the public for being unhealthy & overweight.
This is very disingenuous.
Aug 3, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Wow, this article by @edyong209 for @TheAtlantic is a damning indictment of Trump's failures to lead the 🇺🇸 through the Covid-19 crisis.
It's striking how many sentences can be used to describe Mexico's President #AMLO, too. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
"Despite ample warning, [#AMLO] squandered every possible opportunity."
"A sluggish response by a government denuded of expertise allowed the virus to gain a foothold. Chronic underfunding of public health neutered the nation’s ability to prevent the pathogen’s spread."
Apr 3, 2020 • 14 tweets • 8 min read
The Mexico City metro area has limited ventilators and ICU beds for a population of 21+ million.
As the number of cases rises, Mexico will need to take extraordinary actions to confront #CoronavirusMx.
Mexico's President #AMLO continues to suggest that it's a "short-term health crisis" & promises that the country will bounce back quickly.
Mar 11, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Today during his press conference (1:23:20) Mexico's president warned:
"This is an epidemic. It's going to keep spreading."
He was not talking about coronavirus. He was talking about biased news coverage & attacks from his "conservative" enemies. #AMLO
He also said: "conservatives blame me for coronavirus. We have all the media against us. We still have the same number of cases. We aren’t liars. I speak every day because I know my adversaries. They want us to get infected. I don’t want that to happen."
Oct 17, 2019 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
I'd like to do a little thread. While working on my book, Searching For Modern Mexico, I traveled from the southern Mexican border in Chiapas all the way up to Tijuana. I met with entrepreneurs trying to build businesses in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Michoacan, Jalisco & Baja California.
I came away from the experience with the idea that the three key concepts that describe Modern Mexico are inequality, (labor market) informality, and illegality. Mexico is a country with immense social divisions, with limited job opportunities & serious security problems.
