Robert Stephens: A tale of two countries during COVID-19 pandemic

For the past eight months, I have been absent from these pages because I was hired to coordinate the activities of the Mobile Vaccination Unit for Jordan Valley Community Health Center. In that position, I’ve had the opportunity to work with very knowledgeable medical professionals and to work side-by-side with some of the most dedicated volunteers I have ever seen.

About a month ago, my wife and I had the opportunity to take a vacation over our anniversary date in November. This was the first time in 28 years of marriage that we were actually gone for a two-week period. Always before, work had interfered and we’d take off for only a week at a time. At the positions that we held, there were not really days of vacation; rather, there were days of “work deferral,” as we called them. This meant that no one covered our desks — the work just piled up until we returned.

One thing that struck both of us was the different way in which the United States and Mexico have approached dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. While all were required to wear masks in U.S. airports and on flights, there seemed to be much more emphasis on preventive measures in Mexico. First of all, we were in Cancún for the first week and then in Springfield’s Sister City of Tlaquepaque, in the state of Jalisco. At the time we left the states, both of those cities had higher vaccination rates than did Springfield or Greene County.

While I don’t know what steps the federal or local governments required in Mexico, I did notice that there was a much higher degree of cooperation among the local populations in Mexico with masking, hand sanitizing, and social distancing than we see in Springfield. In fact, each store we went in, there was someone there to greet us and to provide a squirt of hand sanitizer before we touched any of the merchandise. If an employee couldn’t be there at the door, there was a self-service stand with the sanitizer and a thermometer and each person I saw entering would utilize it.

My guess is that the issues of vaccinations and masking were not politicized in Mexico as much as they were in the United States. The concept of “I ain’t wearing a mask; I ain’t carrying a card” is apparently foreign to those living in Mexico. This is not to say that Mexico doesn’t have its own share of problems — drug cartels are feuding with one another and it spills over into the public arena from time to time. However, the focus of this News-Leader piece is on the different approaches to protecting one another from an insidious pandemic.

As my wife and I walked the streets of both Cancún and Tlaquepaque, we noticed a high percentage of people wearing masks as they shopped. All the members of the wait staffs in restaurants and bars were wearing masks and were continually stopping at the hand-sanitizing station. It was apparent that they were taking this pandemic and the suggested or required preventive actions far more seriously than we do here in Greene County.

For some reason, we seem to be far more inclined to listen to Aaron Rogers or Dr. Oz than we are to pay attention to the scientists and the doctors who have studied for the better parts of their lives. The 700,000+ deaths that have occurred from this COVID pandemic are a sad testimony to our national arrogance or our national ignorance — it’s your call as to which.

Robert Stephens is a former Springfield mayor.