Masks stolen amid Mexico City earthquake confusion

The pharmacies are all out of masks, antibacterial soap and Tamiflu, the drug that treats this influenza. Despite this the queues go out the doors.

2000 specialist masks have been stolen from the National Institute of Respiratory Disease.

The streets are still full of people but only around 30% of them wear masks.

When asked why she wasn’t wearing a mask,  a lady cooking at a taco stand said, “I will, but there aren’t any in the shops  right now”.

A young man buying a Coke joked, “I’m immune”.

The city is an even split between the superparanoid and the ultrablasé.

There are rumours that the mayor is planning to shut down the entire public transport system to reduce contagion.

Meanwhile, we had a strong earthquake this afternoon (only 2 points of the devastating earthquake here in 1985). For five seconds 20 million people wondered why the president hadn’t mentioned dizziness in his list of swine flu symptoms. Phone lines got tangled in the shake and people wanting to reassure their mum ending up talking to some lady called Magdalena.

I don’t know what we’ve done but this is the new Egypt – we’re expecting a plague of locusts any minute.