As of Tuesday, there were 9,501 registered coronavirus cases and 857 deaths in Mexico. Much of the country's resources were pooled into the health care system to avert any medical crisis. Last March, Mexico declared a state of emergency, and budgets were cut from departments that focused on security operations.

As a result, some criminal groups exploited the opportunity to amass a following from various communities while the state was busy handling the pandemic.

Last Monday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told drug cartels to stop handing out aid packages to the poor. Although he did acknowledge, this was expected.

Violence Against Health Workers

A much less precedented byproduct of the coronavirus pandemic has been the assaults reported by a lot of health workers.

Many of the cases involved insults with a string of expletives, while flying objects thrown by patients hit some. Others received threats of having hospitals burned down.

According to a study published in the Center for Global Development, Peterson and his fellow researchers documented factors during pandemics that could be attributed to domestic violence. One of those listed in the research was violence against health workers.

Medical workers explain that these assaults were often perpetrated by locals who feared to catch the disease from them or by families and friends of their patients.

At the Mexican Social Security Institute, head of nursing Fabiana Zepeda shared concern for her colleagues who continued to suffer from abuse and assaults. Most of the time, nurses were instructed to avoid wearing their uniforms in public to prevent aggressors.

She said, "These attacks have hit my profession hard. We are giving our lives in hospitals."

Mexican authorities recently dispatched 4,700 National Guard troops to safeguard government hospitals. Amid the crisis, much of the attention was diverted away from discretionary procedures like emergency operations.

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Drug Cartels Distributing Food to Vulnerable Citizens

Last week, Alejandrina Guzman, the daughter of Sinaloa leader Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, filmed herself distributing food and supplies to vulnerable groups in Guadalajara, Mexico. On Wednesday, Guzman posted another video on Facebook asking the public to aid the elderly.

"We want to ask you to please refer us to people who need help, who do not have basic government support," Guzmán said. Daily Mail reported that other drug cartels like the Jalisco New Generation and Gulf Cartel posted photos on social media of armed members distributing food to the poor.

Most of the packages the groups distributed carry the logos of their drug cartels.

Authorities said this was not a new phenomenon. It was common for these drug cartels to gain the trust of vulnerable groups in the population. At the same time, they would also be doing the kidnapping, extortions, and violence.

Lopez Obrador said he did not want to hear the drug cartels say they were handing out packages, and much preferred they lay off and think about everybody who was at stake. He said that this included gang members who were becoming self-aware.

"I don't think you can spend your life always watching your back," he added. "You could get eliminated, that is no life at all."