Amigas Y Amigos,

Hola!  Welcome to Coronavirus in Mexico part 3. It’s been several days since I updated you on the situation here in Mexico, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share the latest and greatest news.  It’s not particularly good.

I’m composing this blog post from my mom’s condo. Andy and I have moved here for one week starting today. Sadly, my mom isn’t here with us. She’s on a plane back to Detroit via Chicago. She was planning to ride out the virus here in Zihuatanejo with us, but sadly immigration would not let her stay in Mexico. Like us, shes on a 180 day tourist visa and the Mexican government would not let her extend it. Luckily our visas won’t expire until June 1, so we have a few more months to stay here.

Since her original flight on April 4 got canceled, she had one more week remaining in her lease. Andy and I jumped at the opportunity to move into her digs, for a week. We’ll move back to our pad close to downtown after a 7 days respite, although we’ll move back and forth a bit to get clothes and assorted items whenever we need them. We moved to her three bedroom condo overlooking La Ropa beach for the following reasons:

First, she’s got an incredible view of the Zihuatanejo bay!  I’m sorry the photo I included in this blog does not do her view justice. We love watching the boats in the Bay, the parasailers (aka dopes on a rope) and the  other happenings. Also, at night, the hillside really twinkles and it’s muy romantico!

She’s got an amazing, amazing view of the Bay of Zihuataneho.

It’s also much cooler where she lives. Even though we only live 1.5 miles apart, she gets a really nice Bay breeze. It’s getting hotter and hotter here but it’s way cooler at her house.

Other reasons include the following;

1. A three bedroom condo is more spacious than our one one-bedroom apartment. We can spread out more here and since we’re together night and day, the space break is nice.
2. She’s got a really nice swimming pool at her condo which is usually empty. We can bring our small cooler up to her pool and chillout.

3. In addition to having these sweet digs, She left us tons and tons of food! And she also left me a brand new bottle of a spectacular tequila, Don Julio 1942! I highly recommend you get yourself a bottle during these trying times 🙂

In addition to staying at her condo, we now have the added luxury of having a car, until May 1 when we hopefully leave for Morelia. We asked her landlord if we could rent her car for another month and he said yes. This is a big benefit for us. Under normal circumstances, we do not want a car, but since we are trying to practice social distancing, it does not make sense to be on crowded city buses, and we’d rather not use taxis so having a short-term rental car is a smart decision.

Mexican response

To say the Mexican government has done nothing to prepare for the virus would not be a factual statement. Things are starting to change here. We’re finally seeing evidence of large-scale shutdowns in the city of Zihuatanejo. Many restaurants in downtown Zihuatanejo have closed or plan to close. The beaches are emptier and emptier. A few days ago, the President, affectionately known as AMLO, finally asked people to start practicing social distancing. But it took a long, long time for him to do anything of substance. Like the United States, State governments have taken it upon themselves to coordinate local responses. Some states moved into action early and some states reacted more slowly. There has not been a country-wide mandate on how to respond to the virus which is discouraging.

However, the Mexican government did invent this cool cartoon character to help people understand what social distancing is all about. Let me introduce you to Susana Distencia!   She kicks butt!

Unfortunately, from what I can tell, many  Mexican’s don’t really appreciate or heed her message to stay apart. It just doesn’t seem to be sinking in quite yet.  I do think that many people are heeding AMLO’s message to stay at home more, but when they are out, they are not staying very far apart.  We see people crowding onto buses, moving close together on the streets, and not respecting individual space in the markets. 

On a more positive note, the government has begun putting up signs in some places including convenience stores and banks and some banks have even started limiting how many customers they allow inside at one time, but I fear these actions have come too little, too late. All signs indicate that Mexico will get very hard hit by the virus and they do not have good medical care to support their citizens. AMLO has said publically that Mexico is well prepared. We will see.  At the time of this blog post, Mexico has only 711 cases, (none in Zihuatanejo), but they have conducted almost no testing and I don’t trust these numbers.  Mexico City will be very, very hard hit. In the next week, I suspect more people will start staying home more and more.  In a prior post, I mentioned I was worried about what will happen when Easter comes since tons of Mexican’s go to the beaches for Easter, and Zihuatanejo gets packed, but we’ve been hearing rumors that they might close them. We’re both hoping this happens. If you are interested, hotel occupancy is Zihuatenjo was eight percent this last week, and Ixtapa occupancy was just 16 percent. Horrible for the economy, but promising to help reduce the spread of the virus.  Furthermore, usually on the weekends (like today) Zihuatanejo beaches would be packed with bus loads of people coming from surrounding areas. Today we only counted six buses. A normal Saturday might garner 50. 

A look inside our lives

We continue to take walks in the early evenings and  I try to run 3 times a week. We haven’t eaten out in a restaurant in about 2 weeks. And I don’t really like takeout so I have been cooking a lot.  We sometimes have coffee out, but only if the cafe is fairly empty. Now that we have a car,  we hope to go to some beaches about 30-40 minutes away.  During the week, these beaches are empty. We’re usually the only people so if they remain open, we feel safe going. We’ll also go back and forth between our apartment and my mom’s to get clothes and other items and to play with the dogs of the family we rent our apartment from. We’ll study Spanish. We’ll go to my mom’s pool. We’ll sit in her hammock and read.  We’ll watch CNN and try to keep up with what’s happening.

Oh, we also created this nifty day-to-day chart to keep us from getting too depressed. We’ve been doing a good job of following it so far.

Finally, we just heard that the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico is strongly encouraging all ex-pats to go back to America if they can. Right now this is only a suggestion, not something that is mandated. Our plan remains the same. We will continue to stay here for the foreseeable future. It’s a bit surreal because both places Andy and I would normally return to (California and Michigan) are absolutely getting clobbered with the Coronavirus, so for now, Mexico continues to feel like the best option for us.

We appreciate your texts, phone calls and electronic communications. We will keep you updated about the situation here, but for now we’re good.

Remember to be kind to yourself and to one another!

Stacey

Dear readers of BelieveitOhrnot,

Hello from Zihuataenjo, Mexico where the temperature is a balmy 88 degrees. I want to give a quick update on how Mexico is preparing for the Coronavirus and what Andy and I are doing to keep safe.

Thanks to CNN and MSNBC we’re fully informed of what’s happening in the United States and around the world.  We watch the news several times a day and we’re online throughout the day.  In my last blog,  I wrote about what Andy and I are doing to prepare. We’ve been stocking up on groceries, wipes and plenty of hand sanitizer.  For the last several days, we’ve been walking around Zihuatanejo looking for hand gel. We didn’t really need any but it seemed like a fun activity.  And because Zihuatanejo is so small, we can cover a lot of ground quickly.  Over the past few days, most places have been sold out, but we found two small bottles.   Then today, we went to a few different pharmacies and they had a lot of handmade gel.  It looked like this.  They had larger ones and smaller ones, but no bottled gel.

Then later today on our walk, we passed a cleaning supply store with a very long line.

People were coming out of the store with huge orange tubs which we later found out was antibacterial gel.  We bought one to share with our landlord, his friends, and with other people in Zihuatanejo who might need it. Trust me, we’re not hoarding it, I promise!

I’m not confident Mexico is preparing for the virus or taking it seriously–although some people may disagree with me.  The President doesn’t believe in practicing social distance and he’s been going from town to town kissing and hugging his supporters.  The Mexican government did call off school for the last month and the country currently has has 93 cases, and they have mentioned practicing social distancing, but people in Zihuatanejo do not seem to be following it.  Some places are doing more than other places just like in the United States. I also just read they have 153 million dollars dedicated to tackling the virus, but I’m pretty sure that’s not enough money.  I am hoping Mexico will follow the path of the USA and start implementing much stricter measure before it’s too late.

When I ask my friends and neighbors what they think of the virus, I get the following replies. 

1. It’s not going to hit Mexico that hard because it’s so hot here.
2. Everyone is panicking for no real reason, especially America.
3. It’s just important to wash your hands but that’s about all.
4.  Mexican can’t close restaurants and shops because the country is too poor and too many people will suffer.

Frankly, I’m really worried about Easter approaching because during Easter, a huge number of  Mexicans flock to the beaches (think American spring break in Miami). People live in their cars, camp on the streets and Zihuatanejo gets insanely crowded. It’s possible the beaches may close (they are starting to talk about closing them) but it’s too early to tell.

In the meantime, our plan is to stay in Mexico for as long as it makes sense. We don’t know how long that is yet, but our day to day life is fine. We practice social isolation and we go to the beach or out for coffee.  We’re trying to avoid all crowds. We have dramatically cut back eating out. Day by day, we are staying home more and more. If the President calls American’s back to the United States we’ll return–but we’d rather not.   Our plan is to move to Morelia on May 1 and spend the summer there.

Here’s the latest post from the Mexico City News.  They have been updating their website several times a day.

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/if-coronavirus-forecasts-prove-accurate-mexico-will-be-quite-a-few-beds-short/

Stay safe and be kind!

For the past three days I’ve been glued to the TV and I’ve spent countless hours on-line reading about Coronavirus. It’s hard for me to unplug.  I’m a bit of a news hound and this story really fascinates me. Between what I’ve been seeing on TV, and what I’ve been reading online and on Facebook, I realize America has gone “end of the world” crazy.  I’m seeing picture upon picture of empty shelves from places like Trader Joes and Costco.

Things are way different here in Mexico so I wanted to share an on-the-ground report.

I guess if I had to explain my mentality about preparing for a natural disaster or for something big like this pandemic, I would say meet my friend Bob. He’s like me.

Bob and I both have a lot in common.  We both try not to buy too many items in bulk and we both wash our hands a lot. We like the folks at the CDC and at the World Health Organization. We try to read a lot of different sources on-line, not just one.

Yeah, so I’m not an excessive prepper. In my everyday life, I rarely have more than one of anything in stock with the exception of maybe a spare cartoon of almond milk, or a few spare tofu’s. Although our house is usually well-stocked with food and it would last a good two weeks if need be.  I usually have rice and beans around and I could whip up a huge pot of soup lasting about a week in a pinch. Do I have enough grub to last for one month? Probably not, but maybe.

The only thing I ever prepped excessively for was for the risk of an earthquake in San Francisco. We couldn’t believe the jackpot of items we found when we unpacked our gigantic rubber garbage can/earthquake emergency bin right before we sold our house!  We found an unopened, brand new solar powered radio,  tons of batteries, bleach, old clothes, an industrial sized jar of peanut butter, and 15-20 really old Cliff bars. In fact, they were so old, we had  to throw them away. I’m thinking 10-15 years old.  We also found several pairs of work gloves, flashlights galore, a camping cook stove, a tent and a tarp and a ton of assorted first aid items.  Did I mentioned the old canned goods and bottled water?   I really was shocked I had done such a good job getting us earthquake ready.  We also found our earthquake emergency car kit, which is way, way smaller, but very well stocked. If we drive without it, I feel very unsettled.

About three days ago, when I started seeing my friends Facebook feeds showcasing empty shelves everywhere, I said to Andy “hey, we should go out and buy some wipes and hand gel before they sell out in Mexico. Mr Tuffy agreed.  We went to the local pharmacy and bought one huge jar of antibiotic hand gel, and 6 travel packs of wipes. I’m sure the lady who rung us up thought we were dumb, scared Americans.

And then I got a bit smarter….and smarter…

My friend Kara who lives in Portland and I were rapping about Corona.  She told me she had recently checked her winter cold supply. She found four stale cough drops, and not much more. She told me that if she and her husband need to self-quarantine, she wants to have some cold and flu medicine available, so she went on-line and researched what she should buy. Smart!  Andy and I did our own inventory last night and today we followed her lead and bought some electrolyte water, a small assortment of cold and flu medication, some cough drops and some advil. Oh, and a bunch of extra packets of kleenex and some vicks vapor rub. Nothing too crazy, just enough to feel like we can take care of ourselves and each other should the stores run out.  We also bought some dried beans, dried fruit, and some assorted nuts and a few packs of tuna. Toilet paper, nope?   Facemasks, nope.  To us, this seemed way less important.

Is Mexico ready for Corona?

If we’re talking about beer, hell yes!  If we’re talking about the virus, not so much. The stores seem very, very well stocked and haven’t run out of anything. I went to Sam’s Club in Zihuatanenjo two days ago and the isles were packed with goods but few people were shopping. They had tons and tons of toilet paper, and loads of wipes.  However, today we went to the main grocery store in Zihuatanejo and we couldn’t find any travel wipes. But we did see someone wiping down each and every grocery cart with disinfectant. Super cool!  We just read that Corona is expected to arrive in Mexico between March 20 and March 30.  Right now there are only 12 cases, but the arrival of Corona in Mexico in inevitable.  Mexico has started publishing some articles about the virus in the newspaper, but they are days and days behind how the U.S is handling the virus.

Additionally, because I thought Mexico was so  far behind,  I also asked my good friend and business partner, Lisa to pick up a few extra items where she lives in Morelia. I figured we could use them in a pinch in May when we arrive, and she happily agreed. She told me that today people are doing a tiny bit more prep and I think some community events are starting to get canceled, but it’s on a very small scale.

Here’s to being prepared in a sort of minimal way kind of way.

I will end this blog post by reminding people to wash your hands, stay home if you are sick, and practice social isolation so you don’t get older people and other vulnerable populations sick. We all have to take this seriously to minimize its risk. And don’t forget to BE KIND.

Our plans are to stay in Mexico and then return to the United States in mid April because my dad is having  big birthday!  Hopefully Corona won’t disrupt it.

You can read more about the virus in Mexico below.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-mexico-border-crossing-limits-200313151403402.html

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/

https://mexico.as.com/mexico/2020/03/13/tikitakas/1584116302_445609.html (in Spanish)

https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/salud/por-que-en-mexico-hay-pocos-casos-confirmados-de-coronavirus  (in Spanish)