Mexican governor orders closure of US factory after it refuses to sell ventilators to Mexico

A governor in Mexico has ordered the closure of a factory run by an American health care firm for refusing to sell ventilators to Mexican hospitals treating coronavirus patients.

Jaime Bonilla, governor of the border state of Baja California, said he closed the Smiths Medical facility because it was not providing an essential service to Mexicans, which is a requirement for factories to stay open during the pandemic.

“We said to them ‘if you want us to consider you essential, you have to provide some benefit to the people of Baja California, by selling us ventilators, because we need them,'” Mr Bonilla said.

“They said ‘no, we are not going to sell you anything, we are just going to continue to use your labour'”.

Mexico has seen a sharp rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the last two weeks from around 993 cases at the end of March to nearly 5,000 today. Some 296 people have died so far in the country.

Source: Yahoo News