Officials hope to convince tourists that travel there is now safe

TULUM, Mexico – The last time Bud Olson visited Mexico, he ended up in a hospital with kidney stones and missed the ancient Mayan ruins in the seaside town of Tulum. So when he heard that swine flu was sweeping through Mexico just weeks before he was to return this year, the 43-year-old Seattle resident and his friends threw all caution to the warm Caribbean breezes and went anyway.

His reward? No lines, great service, empty beaches –- and lower prices.

“There was no one at our resort,” said Olson’s friend, Penny Moeller, 44. “The service was spectacular. But it’s a shame for the economy.”

Some of the promotions being advertised:

Flu-free guarantee: Several hotel chains in Cancun are offering a free vacation a year for three consecutive years if guests come down with swine flu within 14 days of their departure and can produce the blood tests to prove it.

Free insurance: Mexico City is offering tourists free health insurance.

Package deals: Expedia Inc. says average price of vacation packages to Cancun in which a flight and hotel are booked together has dropped 26 percent compared to last summer.

Continue reading.

Photograph by Anita Brown

A lot of this just doesn’t seem to hang together very well. First of all, although travelers from Cancun (where I live) have been diagnosed with swine flu, there is one confirmed swine flu in Cancun. I will repeat that. There is exactly one confirmed swine flu in Cancun. One case. Is that just aporcalypto (as Mexicans are now calling it), or what? In fact, despite being called a pandemic, there really aren’t a lot of cases anywhere in the world, not even in Mexico City. So it would be understandable to wonder why total hazmat anti-terror precautions have been unleashed.

Yet there is a connection to President Obama, who visited Mexico Apr. 16-17 and happened to shake hands with Mexican museum director Felipe Solis, who then died with flu-like symptoms, supposedly shortly after exposing the leader of the free world to deadly swine flu germs. Can you imagine Calderón’s reaction? Beloved wildly popular president of US infected by life-threatening disease on visit to Mexican museum. Aack.

The president of Mexico is the world’s most powerful democratically elected leader, almost an absolute dictator for six years. Mexico in crisis mode is incredibly thorough. A total review of flu cases was already in progress as a result of some unusual clusters in Mexico City and Oaxaca. This then escalated into the current crisis, which I think is more a reaction to very understandable anxiety about the political consequences.

Although the late Sr. Solis was initially reported to have died the day after his meeting with President Obama, he died a week of cardiac arrest following pneumonia. He had chronic diabetes and had already suffered a number of strokes. Swine flu was not present. All in all, only 22 flu deaths in Mexico have now been confirmed as swine flu — most of them in a densely packed and polluted city of 18 million.

Meanwhile, the whole country shut down for five days, fortunately coinciding with the long weekend from May Day to Cinco de Mayo, which kind of ruined the holiday for some Mexicans (especially the tourism industry), but may have improved it for others, who just wanted to stay home and drink beer rather spending a lot of money to visit Cancun or take their children to the movies. Well, you get the flu, you rest and take lots of liquids, right? Never has there been a better example of the well-worn saying, “The United States sneezes, and Mexico gets pneumonia.”

So how did these people who supposedly got the flu in Cancun really get it?

They might have gotten it from other visitors, say from Mexico City, or before they got here. How long were they here? As of today, no cases have been confirmed in Cancun.

The incubation period is 4-7 days, possibly longer. They could have brought it with them. Maybe they got it on the plane or at the airport. The plane seems likeliest because of the close quarters and recycled air, but the airport transport is also an even more confined space.

Perfectly healthy individuals will be carrying a large variety of viruses, among other microbes. Many factors enter into falling ill. Normally, travelers don’t get tested for the strain of flu they contract. They just get treated symptomatically. H1N1 is probably a lot more common than anyone realizes, but it is only diagnosed in severe cases or in crisis situations such as the present.

It’s not unrealistic to suppose that the various stresses of traveling could have caused them to develop flu. In other circumstances, they would have been treated symptomatically and not tested for the specific variant.

Try to follow me here as I attempt to refine my speculation.

If, over a period of approximately a week:

[1] Obama shakes hands with Felipe Solis

[2] Felipe Solis comes down with flu-like symptoms

[3] Solis develops pneumonia.

[4] Solis develops complications of pneumonia.

[5] He dies.

[6] Mexico announces an unusual cluster of fatal cases among about 1,000 victims (now reduced to 590 confirmed) believed to be suffering from swine flu leading to…

[7] …a worldwide panic in which every traveler from Mexico feels intense Black Death anxiety, and, if s/he/it so much as sneezes, gets tested for Pork Flu, resulting in Hamdemic, The Aporkalypse. Note that this kind of testing is a bit more expensive and complex than peeing on a home pregnancy strip. Normally, people with sniffles or even roaring influenza are not tested, nor is every positive result the top story on Google News.

[8] Because Cancun is Mexico’s most popular tourism destination, it gets a lot of H1N1 alerts (the name now changed in consideration of hogzilla industry sensitivity, while conveniently relieving madrassa educated Barack Hussein Obama of having to speak the forbidden word swine).

but:

[9] Cancun has only one case of H1N1 despite the deployment of brigades of medical personnel rounding up people with runny noses.

then:

What?

I really do think that the whole thing is a statistical anomaly produced by unusual attention to a rather common virus that occasionally produces very grave symptoms and some deaths in a relatively small set of highly susceptible victims.

While right wing speculation that wily Democrats somehow produced this crisis in order to get Sibelius confirmed is, at best, amusing, I do think that the speed with which the Senate acted was notable. These Obama folks move very fast, it seems, with great skill and force, when they have circumstances on their side. No wonder Glen Beck and Michelle Bachmann are exhibiting symptoms of agitated depression and paranoia. Who wouldn’t?

As in the rest of the nation, public events and facilities will be suspended from May 1-6, except for vital services such as food and transportation. Many government offices are already closed or offering only restricted service, such as emergency tourist card replacements. Business people I talk with here feel (understandably) that authorities are overreacting in an excess of caution, as very few cases of actual swine flu have been identified, especially given the population of Mexico City. Let’s hope they are right.

CNews, Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:32 AM PDT
Swine flu victims unaware of exposure
Three young Port Perry women who are Ontario’s first confirmed cases of swine flu returned from Cancun on Friday with symptoms but spent the weekend at the local casino and visiting friends because their local hospital never advised them to stay home.

The Scranton Times-Tribune, Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:45 AM PDT
Mexico’s economy ailing
MEXICO CITY — The music of James Brown plays to an empty Starbucks. A woman has virtually an entire airliner to herself as she flies into Mexico City. Beach chairs go begging on Cancun’s sugary sand.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:16 AM PDT
Flu curtails vacations, studies, business travel in Mexico
April 29, 2009 — Tourists Scott Edgar, left, and Matt Metlege, of Canada, sunbathe at the nearly empty Gran Caribe Real hotel’s terrace in Cancun, Mexico.

The Standard-Times, Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:10 PM PDT
New Bedford couple using caution in Cancun
When Paula and John Gomes were planning a romantic getaway to Cancun to celebrate their anniversary, medical face masks and talk of pandemics didn’t factor into their plans.

Cyber Diver News Network, Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:41 PM PDT
Cancun, Cozumel, Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta tours canceled as swine flu spreads
NEW YORK, New York (28 Apr 2009) — Airlines and travel agencies in Asia, Europe and North America announced cancellation of all flights and tours to Cancun, Cozumel, Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta following Mexico’s swine flu outbreak.

ic CheshireOnline, Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:38 PM PDT
Gemma Hopper of Runcorn has second thoughts about Cancun honeymoon after pig flu scare
HONEYMOONERS who were planning a dream trip to Mexico have seen swine flu wreck their plans just weeks before they were due to travel.

CityNews, Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:24 PM PDT
Port Perry Woman: What It’s Like To Have The Swine Flu
Justine Stevenson was one of three Port Perry women to contract the illness in Cancun, Mexico. Luckily, their cases were mild.

WCPO Cincinnati, Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:16 PM PDT
Springboro Teen Tested For Swine Flu
The teenager has flu symptoms and was in Cancun three weeks ago.

See more news stories on Cancun

By Melissa Dahl, Health writer, MSNBC

Debbe Geiger has never been one for tattoos. But when her daughter Kim begged to get a henna tattoo on a family vacation to Cancun a few years ago, she thought it couldn’t hurt. After all, it’s only temporary, and Kim would have something to show off to her friends back home.

But just two days later, the tattoo of a cute little bug had swelled into an itchy, bubbling blister on Kim’s upper right arm.

The American Academy of Dermatology recently issued a warning that a chemical found in black henna tattoos can cause a severe allergic reaction, causing the skin to redden, swell and blister — but only where the henna is applied, leaving people with bubbly blisters in shapes like suns, stars and flowers.
Kim Geiger’s blister faded away within a month, and her mom says she hasn’t had any allergic reaction to medication since. But Debbe Geiger often wonders how anyone could ever tell the difference between safe, natural henna and black henna.

“This was a little booth set up at the hotel pool, and I didn’t think anything of it,” she says.

Experts say there are a few easy ways to tell the difference between true henna and black henna. For one, henna is never black — it’s red, which darkens to a brownish color on the skin as it dries. Real henna starts to fade away within a few days, so be wary of a henna tattoo artist who boasts of tattoos that will last any longer than that.

But both mom and daughter Geiger aren’t taking any more chances; they’re staying far away from all things henna. “It looks so harmless,” Debbe Geiger says, “but you have to watch these ingredients they’re using.”

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