Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and deputy health minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell, said today that coronavirus contagion from the United States is a threat and that President Donald Trump must “finish his wall as soon as possible.”
The coronavirus outbreak in America has infected more than 1,800 people and killed 41 so far, while Mexico has only 16 confirmed cases and no deaths.
President López Obrador said his country is weighing the benefits of unfettered emigration versus the cost of a potential coronavirus outbreak.
“Our people get free education and healthcare in America, and send 20 billion American dollars back to Mexico every year,” he said. “That’s even more than we earn from oil exports, but now we must decide if the open border or the global pandemic is more important to the Mexican people.”
Lopez-Gatell said at a news conference that Mexico has “successfully sent millions of people to America with infectious diseases” like acute flaccid myelitis, HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis, syphilis, mycobacterium bovis infection, and brucellosis.
“But we would never, ever, send coronavirus into the United States and we must prevent the possible flow from the north to the south,” he said. “Trump must finish his wall.”
