Mexican President Felipe Calderon has asked Mexicans not to leave home for five days, with the intention of reducing economic and commercial activities in the country to only the most essential. He called upon the citizens to help prevent further infections this way. To date, the swine flu virus has already claimed 160 lives in Mexico.
The government has assured the public of continued production and supply of food, medicines, as well as the provision of goods and services essential to the population. This means that operations will not cease in maintaining transport systems in ports, airports, and roads. The 5-day break from May 1 to May 5 will only involve ‘non-essential services.’ This current measure is an addition to the earlier order to suspend all classes at all levels.
The general effort behind the economic shutdown is to break the transfer and infection cycle of the virus, although the government has not made clear which sectors will have their activities temporarily suspended. According to the finance authorities of the country, the economic impact of the swine flu virus could be between 0.3% to 0.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Mexico, if the virus persists for three months.
Via World Bulletin
Posted by GSerrano on April 30, 2009 in News + Politics · 1 Comment
Although swine flu did originate from pigs not all pigs have the virus. In fact i believe that we will see other virus coming out of farm animals because this could have easily been avoided if farmers would stop trying to mass produce and leave animals huddled/sick/filthy. Its a shame that they are considering killing all those pigs in Egypt.