Reporting on swine flu, in a surgical mask

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – It’s very hard to eat with a mask on.

Our team in Mexico City are trying very hard to abide by all the hygiene precautions that should help prevent us from catching swine flu.

It feels very rude to refuse to shake the hands of people you are interviewing, but we have been advised to touch no one.

We are spraying ourselves and even my BlackBerry with a whole host of disinfectant products I brought from the US.

And we are dutifully wearing our surgical masks. Even though the latest advice suggests the paper ones don’t do much good.

I obviously caught Jon Snow unawares on the programme the other night by wearing a mask for a live interview. But standing outside a hospital with several confirmed cases inside, it seemed like the only sensible precaution.
 

And it’s amazing how quickly you get used to seeing everyone in the streets, even the maids who clean your hotel room, wearing masks.

The only problem is you can’t eat while wearing a paper mask. All the restaurants in Mexico City have been ordered to close so we have not been eating among the great unmasked.

The only meals we have found have been eaten in grand isolation in our hotel rooms ordered from room service – served of course by waiters in masks.

But closing the restaurants means all the street vendors are selling more tacos and fast food than ever. So outside every hospital it’s common to see huge rows of stalls cooking and selling food – carefully prepared by the masked – and greedily consumed by the unmasked.

Even large groups of doctors stand around in white uniforms eating with bare hands, masks tucked below their chins.

Does that tell us the doctors don’t think the masks make much difference anyway? Or that hunger beats fear?

Right now I am off to the small village where the outbreak may have begun. And I have a feeling they will not all be so carefully masked there.