Mexico Trucker Online

I’ve stayed away from commenting on the H1N1 influenza outbreak, instead preferring to follow the news and the idiots who made a potential health crisis a cause celebre’ against immigration issues, both legal and illegal, without regard to the real reasons or causes. But fortunately, more people with common sense responded with comments overshadowing those of the nativists.
Hindsight is 20/20. So it’s easy now to second-guess the school closings and other, reasonable precautionary measures taken by authorities in the United States in response to the swine flu outbreak.

Why the virus has been more deadly in Mexico than elsewhere still isn’t entirely clear.

In the absence of solid answers, an abundance of caution — though not fear — was appropriate.

There certainly were some cases of excess. As the Express-News Editorial Board pointed out last week, the call by Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y, to seal off the U.S.-Mexico border was inordinately premature. On average, $1 billion of trade crosses that border every day.

If the flu strain had turned out to be more dangerous, however, many of the same people criticizing the school closures would have complained bitterly that not enough was being done to stop its spread.

One of the bright spots in this exercise has been the responsible actions by the government of Felipe Calderón in Mexico.

When a nationwide disease surveillance system detected an unusual increase in influenza deaths among young adults, Mexican public health officials began to work aggressively with international health organizations and scientists in the United States and Canada to determine the cause.

Within a matter of weeks, the new flu strain had been identified and the government was taking decisive steps to stop its spread.

The transparency of the Calderón government’s response stands in stark contrast to the limited information and cooperation that accompanied the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in China.

It also marks a significant break with Mexico’s recent past.

When a lethal earthquake struck Mexico City in 1985, the de la Madrid government rejected international assistance, particularly from the United States.

As with his brave confrontation of the drug cartels, Calderón’s response to the swine flu provides more evidence that his leadership is good for Mexico — and for making Mexico a good neighbor of the United States.

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