Swine flu spreads panic in Mexico City ~~Thank heavens we're not in Mexico City right?

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-04-25-mexicocity-flu_N.htm


The Mexican capital was a fearful place on Saturday, as residents donned surgical masks, avoided shaking hands or simply stayed home amid a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 20 people and perhaps as many as 81 across Mexico.
Mexico City has become the epicenter of the sickness, which is suspected to have infected 1,324 people nationwide by Saturday night. Mexican President Felipe Calderón issued a decree allowing the federal health department to enter homes and forcibly quarantine people, and the authorities ordered all schools closed until May 6 in the capital and neighboring Mexico State.

The capital of 20 million people usually bustles with people on the weekends, but it was strangely quiet on Saturday. Many pedestrians wore surgical masks, as health officials have urged.

"Better to be safe," said Alfredo Mercado, as he tied a blue mask on his 5-year-old daughter Mariana. They had stopped at a pharmacy that was giving out free masks on their way to the playground in España Park.

Mexican officials said Saturday that the first confirmed case of the disease was reported in southern Oaxaca state on April 13, though they added that earlier cases might have gone undetected.