Life is a beach.
The health official who led Mexico’s COVID-19 response was thrown on a masked seaside vacation ignoring his own advice to “stay home” during the pandemic.
Dr. Hugo López-Gatell, deputy secretary of health, was caught in photos relaxing in a beach resort in southern Oaxaca, about 500 kilometers from his home in Mexico City, according to the Los Angles Times .
He was seen in an outdoor photo at a beachfront bar with a woman, neither of them wearing a mask.
In a second photo, he was caught talking on a cell phone with the mask hanging under his chin, while on a crowded flight from Mexico City.
López-Gatell had flown to the beach on New Year’s Eve, taking a break from his nightly press conferences, in which he offers updates on the pandemic and often urges residents to “stay home “, as reported by the Times.
Critics clashed with his trip as the country faced one of the highest coronavirus mortality rates.
“Travel in the worst moment of the pandemic,” political writer Denise Dresser wrote on Twitter, the LA Times reported.
“It’s far from where it should be: with medical staff, implementing the vaccination campaign, setting an example.”
Lopez-Gatell defended his trip on Monday, saying he had “nothing to hide.”
“I went to visit very close relatives, very good friends, and we were in a private house during the end-of-year days,” he said, according to the Daily News.
He also acknowledged that he had visited the restaurant, where he was photographed without a mask, but noted that he did not challenge any rules, as the cases are lower than in other regions.
He went on to state that some of the criticisms of his trip were politically motivated.
“In the electoral context, it is clear that the different political forces want to benefit, they want to create demons and create enemies to position themselves,” he said, the media reported.