MEXICO CITY — In early December, the pandemic was roaring back in Mexico City: After declining over the summer, the coronavirus was spreading rapidly, hospitalizations were spiking and ventilators were running low. In fact, Mexico’s capital had surpassed that threshold according to its own official numbers, an analysis by The New York Times has found. Yet officials kept the capital open for business for an extra two weeks, its streets thronged with shoppers, its restaurants teeming with diners. Mexico decides when to put the nation’s capital and each of its states on lockdown based on a formula that considers the latest numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths. When the government introduced the system, officials told Mexicans that it would be a transparent and objective measure of the spread of the virus.

Source: New York Times December 21, 2020 15:10 UTC