Last Thursday, May 14 the agreement that stablishes the economic activity reopening, baptized President López Obrador as the return to the new normality, was published. This plan consists of 3 stages: the first -which will start on Monday, May 18-, where the reopening of the so-called Municipalities of Hope will take place. There are 324 municipalities that meet the conditions of registering 28 day without new cases and whose neighbors have not registered any COVID-19 cases.
During the second stage -from May 18 to May 31st-, the preparation for the general reopening will take place, which implies the application of training protocols, space adaptation, and filters for companies.
The Federal Government those sectors considered essential for the economy, which include mining, construction, and the manufacture of transport equipment. Finally, the third stage -which will begin on June 1st-, will use a regional system to reopen social, educational, and economic activities throughout the country. This system will be used to assess the epidemiological risk related to the reopening of activities in each state weekly, as well as to establish extraordinary actions.
Returning to economic activity is especially important, because 14 days after the implementation of the social distancing national measures, many workers want to return, due to the difficulty of the confinement, that has resulted in unemployment and income reduction. In the framework of the reopening of activities, companies must take all the necessary security measures, such as the preparation of sanitary protocols, the training of personnel, and the adaptation of spaces; in order to avoid spreading the disease. Workers’ health is paramount and must be protected at all costs.
However, in this reopening process, not everything is good news. There are people who want to stop or to postpone the return, seeking to benefit their own personal interests or trying to get some revenue from it. In the last few days, several news articles have circulated indicating possible infections in Ciudad Juárez maquiladoras, making people believe that companies are responsible for the contagion or that they are centers of infection. But this is not true.
According to the ENOE (INEGI, 2019) the border city occupies the first place nationwide of the 36 cities that employ the highest percentage of maquila workers. T put it into perspective, of the total employed population, 42% is employed in the manufacturing industry. Therefore, it is evident that, having a high percentage of participation in this industry, there will be more COVID-19 cases, but that does not indicate that these companies are centers of infection. For this to be considered true, 5% of its employees must be infected. On the contrary, those news articles have reported as little as 2 to 5 cases in an industry that has a workforce of thousands of workers.
Nobody is denying the problems and challenges we currently face in Mexico, but this is a clear attempt of some media at diverting attention and attacking the industry when there are thousands of workers employed in this sector. This should concern us because what has happened in an industrial city like Ciudad Juárez could be replicated elsewhere, such as the Bajío region, in the states of Aguascalientes and Guanajuato looking to reopen their automotive sector.
Shortly we will return to activities, and we will find ourselves not only in a new situation due to the sanitary measures that companies will implement, but we will also face people attempting to get profit form companies and workers. We must not allow it.
* Arturo Ávila Anaya, IBN/B Analitycs President and National Security Expert by Harvard (NIS).
@ArturoAvila_mx