A lone musician seeks customers on a deserted Acapulco beach.
Hospitals in Acapulco, Guerrero, are on the verge of collapse due to the large numbers of Covid-19 patients they are treating, the resort city’s mayor said on Thursday.
“I’m deeply concerned about the situation we’re going through in our municipality,” Adela Román Ocampo said in a video posted to social media.
“The coronavirus pandemic has spread out across all of Acapulco. The situation is very serious. … The virus exists, it’s not an invention and it’s causing the deaths of thousands of people across the whole country. In Acapulco 38 people have lost their lives and we have almost 520 infected people.”
Román said that Acapulco hospitals are approaching 80% of their capacity and that more people with coronavirus-like symptoms are arriving every day.
If the situation isn’t controlled within a short period of time, “Acapulco’s hospitals will collapse and they won’t be able to attend to more patients,” she said.
The mayor also said that one of the two crematoriums in Acapulco is on the brink of saturation.
Román implored residents of Acapulco to take the pandemic seriously, asserting that “the danger is very high” and pointing out that the pandemic is growing more quickly in Guerrero than in all but two other states of the country.
“Acapulco is the center of the pandemic in the state. That’s why it’s necessary for you to stay at home; don’t go out [where you can] catch or spread a virus that could cause your death or that of your family,” she said.
The Morena party mayor said that she was aware of the economic hardship people are going through due to the shutdown of the tourism sector and economy more generally.
In that context, Román announced a series of measures she said would help to reactivate the Acapulco economy amid the pandemic.
She said that fertilizer will be distributed to 10,000 farmers to allow them to sow new crops “during this very difficult stage of the pandemic,” that jobs will be offered in a local government program to repair potholes before the commencement of the rainy season and that financial support will be made available to 5,000 local fishermen and fishing cooperatives.
However, a true reactivation of the Acapulco economy will be heavily dependent on the resumption of activities in the tourism sector. While authorities in Quintana Roo are hoping to welcome tourists to the Caribbean coast resort city of Cancún as soon as June 8, it is unclear when visitors will be able to return to the port city sometimes referred to as “the Pearl of the Pacific.”
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Wednesday that “the critical time” of the pandemic in Acapulco “is still a long way off” and that its tourism industry won’t be able to open any time soon.
According to federal government statistics, 555 people have now tested positive for Covid-19 in the city while case numbers in Guerrero are just short of 1,000.
Experts suggest the creature may have been a feisty, nontoxic, Mexican bullsnake.
Ever since I came to Mexico, people have been telling me about caves in their area. Strange as it may seem, the descriptions are always remarkably similar, although the caves, if we find any at all, may be completely unalike.
“This cave starts at a little hole over there by a guamúchil tree and goes straight through the whole mountain … ¡Sí, Señor! It comes right out the other side. But no one has ever gone all the way because as soon as you get 100 meters inside, your light is mysteriously blown out, even if it’s a flashlight! That’s what has stopped us from reaching the treasure … and then there are the snakes … No, you’d better not go into that hole!”
The snakes. Everyone supposes that caves are crawling with them, so I always make it a point to tell people that in 53 years of underground exploring, I’ve seen just about the same number of snakes in caves as treasure chests. But one day something happened that made me change my tune …
Not far from where I live there’s a steep hillside with a big black hole that looks, from a distance, like a railway tunnel. When we walked into that dark opening, we discovered something really curious: on the roof, all along the tunnel’s length, were nicely rounded holes, spaced about 11 meters apart. We found 74 of these “skylights” and were unable to explain their presence until we took two archaeologists inside and discovered our cave was not a cave at all, but a man-made underground aqueduct, commonly known by its Arabic name: qanat.
Some years ago I was visited by two cavers from the U.S.A. After taking Ray and Cindy to Tequila, I thought I would stop on the way back to quickly show my friends our mysterious qanat with its curious string of skylights.
One of 74 ceiling holes noted by surveyors of the qanat.
After exploring the lower section of the qanat where, long ago, people used to come to collect water, we climbed up a steep hill of debris and down the other side.The long dirt slope brought us into the main part of the system, a narrow passage about 10 meters high. As we had not planned to do any caving that day, we had only one proper flashlight among us, plus Ray’s feeble throwaway, which was emitting a hazy brown glow.
“No problem,” I exclaimed confidently as we made our way down the dusty dirt pile, “there’s plenty of light in this section from all those holes in the ceiling.”
The four-meter-wide fissure we were in quickly narrowed to a maximum of 1.5 meters at shoulder level and a mere 30 cm on the floor. Right at a spot halfway between the shafts of light, a spot “as black as a cow’s inside” (as Mark Twain might have put it), my friend Ray, who was bringing up the rear, suddenly let out a nerve-wracking scream and began yelling bloody murder at the top of his voice.
“HOLY ☼#Δ■₰!!!!” was shouted with such force and genuine panic that Cindy and I literally leaped into the air and jumped forward while Ray jumped back.
Up until this moment, we had assumed there were only three of us in that cave but, from a point halfway between us, we could hear inhuman noises that made our hair stand on end.
“John, shine the flashlight over there, down on the ground!” And we had our first look at the creature with which Ray had been doing a tango in the dark.
The ancient spelunker, author John Pint.
There in that narrow slot, the bright beam of my light revealed the coils of a nearly two-meter-long snake, type unknown. It was obviously enraged, crazily striking left and right and putting on a terrifying show. As Ray so colorfully expressed it, “That sucker was hissin’ an’ spittin’ an’ jumpin’ all at the same time.” And with good reason. Apparently I had woken it up, Cindy had stepped right on it and unlucky Ray was left to make the apologies.
How do you get past an incensed serpent in a narrow crack? Even when we moved farther away, we could see it lunging at every shadow. It had a good 75 cm reach and there was no way we were going to slip by it in that narrow fissure. The possibilities of “chimneying” up and over it (a technique for climbing cracks) were not too bright, and a little experimenting showed us that one of the side walls was extremely slippery.
Cindy and I pondered our situation while stretched across the crack at a spot farther away and too high for the snake to reach. Meanwhile, Ray left the cave to hunt up a long stick. One thought kept coming back into our conversation: what if all three of us had got trapped on the wrong side of that furious ophidian?
Ray returned with a long pole and we discussed escape plans. Should he prod and push the critter further into the cave, beyond the high spot where Cindy and I were now perched? Or should he try to hold its head down while we made a flying leap over it? Both solutions might have resulted in the snake taking off after Ray. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a copy of the Guinness Book of Records to find out what this reptile’s top speed was, so we decided on option two, which might result in demobilizing the beast for a few moments.
Cautiously Roy reached out with the pole. “Keep the light on it, John! Keep the light on it! Ah! Got him!” There was a wild thrashing of rippling coils. Hoping Ray had the right end pinned down, Cindy scrambled over, feet on one wall, hands on the other. “EEEEK! I’m slipping!”
Ah, what a scene for an Indiana Jones movie! But she didn’t slip, and now it was my turn. I opted for a flying leap, which resulted in my going right over Ray’s head. Of course, as I flew over him, there was no more light on the snake. “Run for it, Ray!” I shouted and believe me we didn’t tiptoe out. Never have I seen anyone get up the steep dirt-hill entrance faster than the three of us.
[soliloquy id="111638"]
On our way home we acknowledged that our little problem might not have developed had we not broken one of the cardinal rules of caving: don’t go into a cave unless every member of the group has three sources of light.
One person trying to light the way for three reduced our chances of spotting danger to almost zero. In addition, we might have realized that a cave with 74 holes in the ceiling is 74 times more likely to contain extraneous objects than a normal cave. Breathing frequent sighs of relief, we celebrated our “self rescue” with frosty bottles of Negra Modelo. After all, having found that elusive snake-in-a-cave was a sure indication that on our next trip we were bound to run into a treasure chest.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
A poor area of the borough of Iztapalapa, Mexico City.
The coronavirus-induced economic crisis could push more than 34 million additional people – about one in four Mexicans – into poverty in a worst case scenario, according to an analysis by the research division of the bank BBVA.
If the Mexican economy contracts by 12% this year – the low-end of the bank’s current forecast range – 16.4 million additional people would find themselves in situations of “income poverty” and 18 million more would be pushed into “extreme income poverty,” BBVA said.
The federal government’s social development agency, Coneval, sets the poverty line at income of 3,208 pesos (US $140) per month for people living in urban areas and 2,086 pesos (US $92) for those living in rural areas. The extreme poverty line is set at income of 1,632 pesos per month (US $72) in urban areas and 1,165 pesos (US $51) in rural areas.
If the economy shrinks by a more modest 7% this year – BBVA’s most optimistic forecast – 12 million additional people will be pushed into “income poverty” and 12.3 million people will find themselves in situations of “extreme income poverty.”
According to the bank’s 7% contraction analysis, the combined number of additional people who would be considered impoverished due to their income would be 24.3 million, 29% fewer than in the more dire scenario.
A recession just 0.5% less severe – a forecast in line with the 6.5% contraction predicted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean – would leave an additional 16.6 million people in situations of poverty and extreme poverty, BBVA said.
BBVA México chief economist Carlos Serrano told the newspaper La Jornada that Mexico will face a “new economic reality” as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
“We know that the country has enormous inequalities and the pandemic will exacerbate them,” he said, adding that the government will have to take additional measures to address the situation. Tax breaks, higher pensions and improvements to public education and health care could all help to reduce inequality, Serrano said.
Serrano said that more job losses can be expected in the short term even as the federal government takes steps to reopen the economy from June 1 despite the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
Mammoth bones are cleaned at the construction site.
Archaeologists have found the remains of more than 60 mammoths at the site of the new Mexico City airport, located about 40 kilometers northeast of the capital in México state.
Scientists with the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) discovered the bones during recent months but didn’t report the findings until Thursday.
They were found in the area where the control tower and runways of the new airport – currently under construction at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base site – will be located.
INAH experts will treat the bones to conserve them and they will eventually be put on display at a museum planned for the airport site, said chief archaeologist Pedro Francisco Sánchez Nava.
The remains are of Columbian mammoths and correspond to adult males and females as well as their young. Columbian mammoths were abundant in the Pleistocene era, which concluded about 12,000 years ago.
Bones of at least 60 mammoths have been located.
Sánchez said the mammoths probably died naturally after getting stuck in the mud of an ancient lake that subsequently disappeared.
However, he said that it is possible that the giant herbivores were steered into the mud by hunters who might have killed them and stripped off their flesh after they became stuck. INAH archaeologists found two mammoth traps late last year in Tultepec, a México state municipality just 10 kilometers from the new airport site, demonstrating that hunters in the late Pleistocene era used more sophisticated hunting methods than previously thought.
Sánchez said that the recently-discovered bones will be subjected to tests to try to find out more about how the extinct mammals lived and died.
He said that it is possible that more mammoth remains will be found at the airport site as exploration continues. Some 30 archaeologists are working there as construction of the the Felipe Ángeles International Airport – scheduled to open in 2022 – takes place.
“We’re in the exploration stage but there are also curators and restorers who are helping us with the cleaning of the remains,” Sánchez said.
He stressed that the discovery of the mammoth bones and the ongoing exploration will not cause any delays to the construction of the new airport, one of the federal government’s signature infrastructure projects.
Archaeologists have also found remains of other Pleistocene era animals in the area, including those of now-extinct bison and camel species, as well as 15 burial pits where it is believed pre-Hispanic farmers were laid to rest.
The erstwhile agriculturalists were buried with ceramic pots and bowls as well as mud figurines. Sánchez said that the human remains probably dated from around 500 to 1,000 years ago, several millennia after the mammoths became extinct.
The San Miguel de Allende municipal council approved the placement of health checkpoints at the entrances of the historic, central highlands city in Guanajuato.
As of June 1, the checkpoints will be activated “as a preventative measure to return the city of San Miguel de Allende to normality, in the face of the coronavirus contingency,” said the council in a statement.
The checkpoints will be placed at the bus station as well as the four highways leading into town and manned by the National Guard, the municipal police, Civil Protection and the Ministry of Health.
All vehicles entering San Miguel will be stopped and passengers and drivers will have their temperatures checked and be provided with hand sanitizer. They will be asked the purpose of their visit and their names, places of origin, ages and phone numbers will be recorded and registered with health officials.
On Wednesday night, the council also approved guidelines for a four-phase, staggered reopening of the economy.
In the first phase, most retail stores will be allowed to reopen, including restaurants and beauty salons.
The next phase will see public parks, theaters, libraries, cultural centers, churches and churches follow suit.
During phase three, sports centers such as gyms and community athletic fields will begin operating again.
And in phase four, bars, nightclubs, museums, spas, tourist activities and private vacation home rentals, such as Airbnb, will be allowed to reopen.
Guanajuato currently has a “green light” on the federal government’s stoplight rating system, meaning federal restrictions may be lifted as of June 1. The state has 897 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and had recorded 84 deaths as of Thursday.
There have been 14 confirmed cases in San Miguel and no deaths reported.
Salvador Esteban checks his coffee plants in Pluma Hidalgo.
As the coronavirus pandemic has shut down both the tourism and restaurant sectors in Mexico and abroad, coffee producers in Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur region are worried about the future of an industry they say has been forgotten by the federal government.
“All of this affects the commodity chain,” said Rosario Esteban Figueroa, a coffee grower and cafe owner from the region’s premier coffee-growing community, Pluma Hidalgo.
“As producers and small business owners we create jobs, generate economy, promote our community as a tourist destination [and] bring the earnings of this dispersed local economy into the community,” she said.
But those revenues are currently under threat. The lack of coffee shops brewing up lattes, espressos and cappuccinos nearly the world over has affected sales drastically.
“There are small producers here in Pluma who haven’t sold a kilo of coffee in over three months,” said Damián Ramírez, whose family runs a small plantation just outside of town.
Coffee plants await planting out.
He and other growers have had to lay off workers and reduce production during the quarantine period.
“We small producers are suffering,” he said.
And data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) back up that claim. Its annual report on the Mexican coffee industry, published on Tuesday, states that “Covid-19 effects are expected to stunt consumption growth, as restaurants and cafes around the country are closed, stymying government and specialty producer efforts to increase consumption of high-value Mexican coffee.”
But the wholesale market isn’t the only part of this local economy affected by the pandemic. Tourism is also an important source of income for many communities in the Sierra Sur, including Pluma Hidalgo.
Long known as the place that supplies coffee shops in Oaxaca City with its characteristically acidic beans perfect for strong, dark roasts, the town has worked hard to promote tourism to its misty peaks in recent years. And more and more tourists had been making the pilgrimage to sample the black gold of Pluma at its source before the pandemic erupted.
Esteban owns cafes in both her native Pluma Hidalgo and nearby San José del Pacífico, normally popular year-round with tourists seeking mystical experiences via the magic mushrooms that grow there.
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These days that usually consistent flow of visitors isn’t even a trickle. She closed the cafe in San José and has seen some pretty lonely days in her flagship store back home.
“There is no tourist presence in the area, which depends greatly on tourism,” she said.
Ramírez, who runs a cafe right next to Esteban’s in Pluma Hidalgo’s main square, agreed with her that the lack of tourists has gravely affected the incomes of small coffee producers in the region.
What they and other growers say they need is government support, but that’s something that has been in short supply since before the economy was shut down.
Growers in Pluma Hidalgo receive an annual stipend of 5,000 pesos (US $220) from the federal government as part of President López Obrador’s social welfare-heavy 2020 budget. Both told Mexico News Daily that it is nowhere near enough.
And the USDA report backs up that claim, noting that “a lack of impactful government investment in the sector is a severe impediment to consistent growth in the years to come.”
As the 2020 flowering season begins amid a glut of uncertainty, Esteban, Ramírez and other small producers from the Sierra Sur hope the federal government won’t leave them high and dry.
“We’re hoping the government will support the [coffee] sector, … because it’s going to be a very, very slow reactivation of our economy,” Esteban said.
Testing is fundamental, says Julio Frenk, now president of the University of Miami.
Reopening the economy without widespread Covid-19 testing is “irresponsible” and will cause Mexico to “lose control” of the pandemic for a second time, says a former federal health minister.
In an interview with the newspaper El Universal, Julio Frenk Mora, health minister in the 2000-2006 government led by former president Vicente Fox, said that testing is essential in order to prevent a large second wave of coronavirus infections.
“So that people can leave their homes, testing is fundamental because if we don’t test, we’ll lose control of [the pandemic] again and we’ll have to ask everyone to stay at home again and that will be disastrous,” he said.
“It’s irresponsible to say that the economy can be opened without testing; what they [the federal government] are almost guaranteeing is that we’ll have to close it again,” Frenk added.
Just under 202,000 people have been tested for coronavirus in Mexico, according to data presented by the Health Ministry on Thursday night, a figure that equates to about 1,600 tests per one million inhabitants. Mexico’s testing rate is about 40 times lower than Spain’s, 25 times lower than that of the United States and 14 times lower than the rate in Chile.
Despite the growing pandemic (Mexico had recorded almost 60,000 Covid-19 cases and 6,510 deaths as of Thursday) and the low testing rate, the federal government is forging ahead with plans to begin reopening the economy on a state by state basis starting June 1.
Asked whether Mexico is ready to start taking steps toward the “new normal” at the start of next month, Frenk responded:
“The country is very heterogeneous, there has not been one sole pandemic but rather many epidemics in different parts of the country. … There are parts of the country that might be ready to open but in general, [Mexico is] definitely not. … Even in places that are ready [to reopen] because the number of cases has gone down, testing is fundamental.”
The former health minister, a medical doctor and public health academic who is currently president of the University of Miami, said the federal government’s “unwillingness” to test more widely – only people with serious Covid-19 symptoms have been tested to date – is “inexplicable” and has prevented it from fully understanding the size of the pandemic.
“If we don’t know the magnitude of the problem, thinking of an optimal solution is difficult,” he said.
“I don’t know if we know something in Mexico that is unknown in the rest of the world because all other countries have insisted that the key to understanding and controlling the pandemic and reopening the economy in a safe way is to do more tests. Mexico is the only country that’s not doing it,” Frenk said.
Active Covid-19 cases in Mexico as of Thursday evening.
He also said that “it’s a mistake to suggest that we’ve already passed the worst” of the pandemic. “The truth is that we don’t really know when [the peak] will arrive.”
Frenk charged that the government failed to respond in a timely manner to the pandemic even though the national social distancing initiative commenced when Mexico had recorded just 316 coronavirus cases and two deaths and a health emergency declaration that suspended all nonessential activities was issued on March 30 when the country had just over 1,000 cases and 29 people had lost their lives to Covid-19.
“An early window [of opportunity] was unfortunately lost,” he said.
“All the countries that have done well [in controlling the pandemic] reacted on time and those that haven’t done well trivialized and played down the emergency. One characteristic shared by many of the latter is that they have populist governments: Russia, Turkey, Italy, the United States, Brazil and Mexico. A trait of populism is to undervalue the opinion of experts,” Frenk said.
“This virus is very difficult to control because it’s very contagious and people without symptoms, or mild symptoms, can transmit the disease and cause it to grow exponentially. In countries that have done well, they tested quickly.”
Frenk rejected President López Obrador’s claim in late April that coronavirus had been “controlled” in Mexico and his assertion that the government’s management of the crisis has been a “success.”
Even though official statistics “undoubtedly” underestimate the size of the pandemic, they show that it is growing “exponentially,” Frenk said.
“The health emergency hasn’t ended; I think that saying that the [management of the pandemic] is a ‘success’ is premature.”
Ejutla, Oaxaca, where coronavirus restrictions have been lifted.
The outlook is not so hopeful for at least two dozen municipalities that initially made the list of the coronavirus-free “municipalities of hope.”
They have dropped off the list due to new infections since they were given the green light to reopen and lift coronavirus restrictions on Monday.
Originally the government had identified 324 communities that could begin reopening, although only 54 actually did lift restrictions. Governors in five states — Jalisco, Guerrero, Chihuahua and Oaxaca — said they would not begin to reopen until at least June 1.
And in states like Puebla and San Luis Potosí, the outlook is not quite as optimistic as it was at the beginning of the week as far as returning to the “new normal.”
Puebla Governor Miguel Barbosa said that of his state’s 13 municipalities of hope, only eight remained due to confirmed cases of the virus or proximity to other municipalities with infection.
The situation is similar in San Luis Potosí, which on May 13 had six qualifying municipalities and now there are none.
By May 17, a day before the scheduled reopening, five of the six communities had seen outbreaks of the coronavirus, and the remaining municipality borders on a community with confirmed cases and is thus not eligible to reopen under the federal government’s criteria.
In addition, Moctezuma, Sonora, now has two reported cases and one death, as does Tezonapa, Veracruz.
And despite the fact that these two states did not reopen, the virus has reached them.
Cañadas de Obregón in Jalisco now has its first five cases of the coronavirus, and in Oaxaca 11 municipalities previously deemed virus-free have now seen cases.
The Spanish newspaper El País reported Wednesday that no virus tests had been carried out in 67% of the municipalities of hope.
Infection diseases specialist Alejandro Macías told the newspaper that it was only a matter of time before those municipalities began reporting Covid-19 cases, and stressed the importance of testing to determine the magnitude of infection.
It’s a navigational instrument that countries can use to determine if activity can be resumed, he said.
While humans deal with outbreaks of the coronavirus, rabbits and hares in northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States are suffering from a viral threat of their own.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader) reports that so far rabbits and hares both domestic and wild have been diagnosed with a type of hemorrhagic fever in the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Sonora.
The federal agriculture sanitation authority Senasica first confirmed cases of the rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus 2 in rabbits in Chihuahua in April. Since then it has detected 36 cases among domestic rabbits and 11 in wild hares, the latter being found in the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sonora.
Health authorities ordered immediate action to deal with the problem, including culling infected populations and sanitizing areas where sick animals have been.
Labs operated by Senasica have tested 147 domestic rabbits and 22 wild hares, and veterinarians have tended to 52 potential cases reported from 12 states.
The virus is not native to Mexico, and experts from both sides of the border agree that it is highly contagious and lethal for rabbits and hares, but cannot be transmitted to humans or other animals.
To mitigate the spread of the virus, health authorities are advising cuniculturists, or rabbit breeders, not to transport sick or dead rabbits. Restricting nonessential persons or other animals from accessing breeding pens and avoiding buying rabbits of unknown origin will also reduce the spread of the disease.
Filmmakers, from left, Cuarón, Iñárritu and del Toro argued successfully against elimination of fund.
Mexican film industry leaders have persuaded the federal government not to touch a stimulus fund that supports film projects.
Three award-winning directors and other prominent figures in the industry held a virtual meeting Thursday with the Chamber of Deputies culture and cinema commission to protest a plan to eliminate Fidecine, the Cinema Investment and Stimulus Fund.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies had earlier this week proposed the elimination of the fund under coronavirus belt-tightening measures, but the assembled actors and directors were able to convince deputies otherwise through impassioned arguments about the importance of film as an industry and its essential place in Mexican culture.
“If the government is allowed to do this, it’s truly a devastation within a structure of an already very fragile ecosystem. It’s like a deforestation,” Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro told Screen Daily in response to the proposed cut. He noted that support was necessary not just to foster artistic voices but to offer diversity at a time when Hollywood exports continued to dominate local box office.
“This economic crutch allowed first-time filmmakers to make movies – without it there would have been no new generation when I was coming up in the late 80s and early 90s.”
Del Toro was joined by multiple Oscar-winning directors Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón, who told the commission in a statement that the Mexican film industry “is a memory, window and mirror of our nation.”
After hearing their arguments, Deputy Mario Delgado announced that the funding would remain in place, and the government would continue to help support and grow Mexico’s film industry.
Fidecine was created in 1988 and has grown over the years to fund some 20% of Mexican films since 2002. The trust is valued at 223 million pesos or US $9.78 million.
Fidecine is one of 44 trusts, or fideicomisos, that lawmakers have proposed eliminating. Jointly they hold 91 billions pesos in funding (US $4 billion) for a range of initiatives, from filmmaking and scientific research to rural development and the protection of human rights.
President López Obrador proposed the trusts’ elimination in April, saying the money should be allocated to reactivating the post-coronavirus economy.
