Humour turning to panic in stricken city

ON Monday – before the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert to its second-highest level – it was easy enough to laugh about the swine flu, however inappropriately.

Mexico City has lived through floods, earthquakes, diseases, violence, pollution and crime. Residents, known as chilangos, are very good at toughing things out, and masters at improvisation.

On the streets of the city’s historic centre, nearly everyone wore a surgical mask. Some moved them to the sides of their faces while they puffed on cigarettes. Many talked through them on cell phones. Others wore them jauntily around their necks as if they were scarves. One woman had drawn a smiling mouth with a magic marker. A man had a mask completely covering his face – and wore sunglasses. He looked like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man.