Standstill.(The Talk of the Town)(swine influenza's influence in the daily life of Mexicans)

One of the larger consequences of the government's efforts to contain the spread of the swine-influenza virus here in Mexico City is tedium. Mexicans are generally festive people, and now that the city government has closed down restaurants, bars, and night clubs there is no place to share a couple of drinks and a few jokes about the current dreadful situation. What is more, people have become afraid of one another.

"We don't see anyone," a very pregnant friend complained. "We're all afraid of contagion." In the days since the news of the epidemic broke, she had caught up on all her work, paid the bills, changed the haircut of her toddler daughter--whose kindergarten has also been closed down--and was about to take some photographs of her own belly. There's a small park outside her building, but, like all the other mothers, she was afraid to use it. "Am I bored?" she exclaimed. "Muchisimo! I imagine people all over the city locked up in their apartments, staring into the mirror, plucking their eyebrows down to nothing."

There is the boredom, and, for millions of wage earners, there is also desperate economic worry. Angeles Melo manages a restaurant catering to office workers. The government has allowed restaurants to provide carryout service, but business is slow. Her clients tell her that they aren't allowed to eat at their desks. "So where are they supposed to take their food?" Melo said. "I delivered a torta here and there, but it doesn't add up to an income." Her one waitress, Josefina Martinez, was in worse shape. Like most service employees, she gets paid the minimum wage--fifty-five pesos (four dollars) a day--plus what, on a good day, might be two hundred and fifty pesos (eighteen dollars) in tips, enough to contribute to her family's household expenses and cover her transportation. Now she can barely afford to come to work. Melo, asked how long she could hold out like this, looked panicked. "I wouldn't like it to go past next week," she said.

Like Melo, the country is in terrible financial shape: according to the Banco de Mexico, the economy could contract by as much as 4.8 per cent ...