On Monday, the Secretaries of Defense and the Navy recommended to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to extend the lockdown and the social distancing policy beyond June 1st, when the President wants to reopen the country and end the paralysis of most of the economy.

As LPO was able to learn, the recommendation by José Rafael Ojeda and Luis Crescencio Sandoval was accompanied by a devastating opinion regarding the calculations of Health Undersecretary Dr. Hugo López-Gatell and the team of mathematicians and statisticians who advise him regarding the Coronavirus crisis.

What is more, the military pointed out that from those same study centers, calculations on crime and security issues have emerged that were far from being translated into reality.

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Dr. López-Gatell, Mexico's Covid-19 Zar

In the same logic, they warned that a complex dichotomy exists in the management of the pandemic because there are decisions that are made based on the so-called "Sentinel Model", which multiplies the official number of infections -the multiplier varies-, although in turn all the Government's announcements are made based on the official figures, which would only take the most severe cases of the disease.

They also claim that the Army and Navy health facilities that are used for Covid-19 patients are reflecting a dramatic scenario that, if they were to reopen without order, the consequences would be dire.

Even taking into account Lopez-Gatell's calculations, there is anxiety about the date chosen to begin resuming activities. The Undersecretary reported that this week Mexico will experience the peak of the pandemic's infections, but that the next two weeks will also be very sensitive because the intensive care rooms will be almost full.

So, if by the end of May the panorama will still be so critical, why endorse the opening of activities, which could perhaps generate a new wave of infections?

"We are on the verge of saturation in some places like Mexico City or Tijuana.

Sandoval and Durán bring to the table an issue that goes beyond Mexico's borders because Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard promised the Trump administration to reopen the economies almost in parallel. This is a pressure that the Mexican government has been facing in order to avoid disruption to the region's supply chains.

Lopez Gatell's resilience is no small feat. Like other figures who swarm in the heights of government, he had his setback in an interview with The Economist in which he talked about the numbers of the sentinel model and unleashed the President's unease, who until then had heard nothing about that equation.

So Ebrard was left in charge of much of the management of the crisis. Now, however, the Undersecretary is regaining prominence - he was even cheered by AMLO on Monday morning - and irritating the military.