Mexico celebrates Mother's Day amid pandemic

Few countries celebrate Mother's Day with such veneration as Mexico, and authorities worry the celebration could threaten lockdown measures and spread the new coronavirus.

Officials have ordered the closing of public markets, pastry and flower shops.

Access to some cemeteries were closed to prevent people from visiting their mothers' graves.

Restaurants and flower shops are expected to be making home deliveries.

Will there be mariachi serenades for Mexican mothers or will they sit idle in Plaza Garibaldi?

This week the Mexico City government closed 42 public markets, including flower markets such as Jamaica Market and the Flower Palace, which left hundreds of flower shops having to instead set up deliveries to their biggest clients: mothers on Mother's Day.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has proposed delaying celebrations.

But that did not stop a small group of women congregating by the Mother's Monument, in order march for their missing children.

Margarita Lopez calls for justice for her daughter Yajaira Bahena, missing and assumed to have been murdered nearly a decade ago.

Wearing a mask, Lopez chanted alongside a dozen other mothers of missing people.

In a street market in Azcapotzalco, in Mexico City, Griselda Padilla laments that business is only 20% of what it used to be on Mother's Day.

Francisco Garbiel Romero, a delivery man, readies instead to pick up bouquets in what is expected to be a good day for home delivery.

Vicky, a flower shop owner at El Palacio de las Flores or "The Flower Palace" in downtown Mexico City, was forced to close her kiosk inside the market.

She still managed to prepare her flower arrangements at an improvised shop close to the market and have them delivered.

Serenades at Garibaldi Square, a long time classic for most traditional families, have also seen the need to adjust.

Payments now take place through wire transfers and very seldom Mariachis actually go inside the houses they are serenading.

Some are taking it a step further by streaming live feeds or recording serenades.

(Representative Image)