Harvey and Hirschsohn were killed at their vacation home in El Socorrito.
A man has been arrested by authorities in Baja California in the September stabbing deaths of a San Diego-area couple who frequently spent time in Mexico.
Authorities believe that Emmanuel “N” killed retirees Ian Hirschsohn and Kathy Harvey in Hirschsohn’s home in El Socorrito, Ensenada, probably in late August. Police believe the suspect, who his daughter says was known to Hirschsohn, stabbed them in their sleep while burglarizing the home then dumped their bodies in a well a few miles away.
The couple were reported missing on September 2 after they did not show up in San Diego on August 30 as planned. Authorities, who found the bodies on September 5, say they found items at the scene that belonged to the suspect.
Hirschsohn’s daughter Ava Setzer identified the suspect to the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper as a member of the family that owns the ranch where her father’s home is located. She said her father knew the family well, including the suspect. According to Mexican census information, the tiny town of El Socorrito has a population of about 30.
According to Setzer, authorities believe the suspect stabbed the couple, loaded their bodies into Hirschsohn’s Toyota Land Cruiser and drove to a well “in the middle of nowhere,” where he also dumped bedding from the home.
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The victims enjoyed exploring Baja California. Harvey, a native New Yorker who had lived in the San Diego area for over three decades, had worked as a physical therapist until her retirement in 2014, according to her son Robert Harvey.
“She had a bucket list of places she wanted to travel … and multiple friend groups,” he said.
His mother had been dating Hirschsohn for a least a couple of years, he said. “She was really happy with Ian.”
Hirschsohn, a widower, was “more active than anybody half his age,” said his daughter. “He lived the most full life, probably three times over.”
The news of the arrest came as a relief to the victims’ loved ones.
“The past couple of months, this whole process, I can’t even describe how difficult it’s been,” Setzer said.
Harvey said it was a comfort to know that his mother’s murderer was “going to have to pay for it, that he’s not going to get away with it.”
Deputy Health Minister López-Gatell: time to reflect on virus strategy.
As Mexico’s official Covid-19 case tally approaches 2 million and the death toll continues to climb at a rapid pace after passing 150,000 this week, coronavirus czar Hugo López-Gatell on Wednesday committed to evaluating the national pandemic strategy with a view to improving it.
The deputy health minister made the pledge at a virtual forum at which a compilation of papers entitled Reflections on Mexico’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic and Suggestions to Face the Coming Years was presented.
Containing observations from 38 medical experts who attended a November coronavirus seminar organized by the National Institute of Public Health, the compilation proposes a range of government actions and measures to bring Mexico’s coronavirus pandemic under control and reduce the number of Covid-19 deaths.
Among them: improving communication about the pandemic, advocating forcefully for the use of face masks, making masks mandatory in all enclosed spaces, creating a medical guide for coronavirus patients that highlights the importance of using pulse oximeters to measure oxygen levels, accelerating the Covid-19 vaccination program, strengthening the competence of health workers, promoting a culture of hygiene and improving the systems to monitor and trace coronavirus cases and contacts.
After hearing some of the proposals, López-Gatell told the virtual forum that the government would carefully review the document they are contained in.
Graue: the health system has been overwhelmed.
“I want to say emphatically – and in this I carry the voice of Health Minister Jorge Alcocer – that we don’t just have the joy of receiving this systematic, analytical, critical and purposeful observation but also the commitment to use it in the best way,” he said.
“[We’ll] use it to make a stop along the way, to reflect on how we can improve … Mexico’s health conditions during and beyond the Covid-19 epidemic,” López-Gatell said.
At the Health Ministry’s Wednesday night coronavirus press conference, the deputy minister said the government would announce in the coming weeks whether changes to the national coronavirus strategy that take the experts’ proposals into account will be made.
“We’re carrying out an internal reflection … to identify the specific changes that have to be made in the different areas that have been pointed out, including epidemiological surveillance, health promotion, communication of risks and social communication. There are also aspects that have to do with well-being and the economy. In the next few weeks, starting next week I hope, we’re going to present the recommendations one by one and [outline] the response the government will have with respect to them,” López-Gatell said.
The government has been widely criticized for its pandemic response, especially for not testing widely enough, failing to set an example with regard to mask wearing – President López Obrador, currently ill with Covid, has seldom worn one – and not enforcing a strict lockdown.
At Wednesday’s virtual forum, National Autonomous University Rector Dr. Enrique Graue called on the government to “take a pause on the road, leave polarization behind” and evaluate the results of its coronavirus strategy and how it can be improved. The university rector, an ophthalmologist, charged that the failure of the government’s strategy has caused Mexico’s health system to be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.
Speaking at Wednesday night’s press conference, López-Gatell denied that was the case.
“In net terms I believe that it hasn’t and the evidence is there to see,” he said, referring to hospital occupancy levels.
Across the national health system, 60% of general care beds are currently taken but the occupancy rate in six states is 80% or higher. They are Mexico City, 88%; Guanajuato, 84%; México state, 83%; Hidalgo, 83%; Puebla, 81%; and Nuevo León, 80%.
Mexico’s accumulated tally passed 1.8 million on Wednesday with 17,944 new cases reported while the official Covid-19 death toll rose to 153,639 with 1,623 additional fatalities registered.
Mexico has ranked second to last among 98 countries in a “Covid Performance Index” developed by an Australian think tank to measure the effectiveness of pandemic responses around the world.
Developed by the Lowy Institute, the index tracked six measurements in the 98 countries for which data was available: confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million people, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests and tests per thousand people.
The period examined spans the 36 weeks after each country’s 100th confirmed case of Covid-19 using data available to January 9, 2021. Mexico recorded its 100th case on March 18 last year.
The Lowy Institute used the six indicators to calculate a score out of 100 for each of the 98 countries.
“A score of 100 indicates that a country achieved the best average score across the six indicators compared to all other countries examined at a comparable point in time. Conversely, a score of 0 indicates that a country had the worst average score at a given moment during the pandemic,” the think tank said.
Covid testing rate is among the indicators employed in the performance index.
Mexico’s score was 6.5, placing it 97th among the 98 countries, ahead of Brazil, which achieved a score of 4.3. Brazil ranks second in the world for total Covid-19 deaths with more than 220,000 whereas Mexico currently ranks fourth with more than 153,000. Mexico’s death toll will likely soon pass that of India, which currently ranks third. The United States ranks first with almost 430,000 fatalities.
Brazil ranks third for confirmed coronavirus cases with just under 9 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, while Mexico ranks 13th with just over 1.8 million. However, Mexico’s accumulated tally is considered a significant undercount due to the low testing rate.
The presidents of both Mexico and Brazil have repeatedly downplayed the threat of the coronavirus, opposed strict lockdowns and failed to advocate forcefully for face masks. Another thing that President López Obrador and Jair Bolsonaro have in common is that they both contracted the virus, the former just days ago.
The other countries among the 10 worst ranked by the Lowy Institute were Colombia, Iran, the United States, Bolivia, Panama, Oman, Ukraine and Chile.
New Zealand, which has only recorded about 2,000 cases since the start of the pandemic and just 25 Covid-19 deaths, was ranked first for the effectiveness of its pandemic response with a score of 94.4 out of 100. The island country implemented a strict lockdown at the start of the pandemic and closed its border to most foreigners while maintaining a tight quarantine program for returning citizens.
Vietnam ranked second followed by Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia and Sri Lanka. China was not included in the rankings due to a lack of publicly available data on testing, the Lowy Institute said.
The think tank noted that the coronavirus pandemic has affected the Americas (North and South) more than any other continent.
It said that smaller countries with populations of fewer than 10 million have consistently performed better in managing the pandemic than their larger counterparts. Mexico has a population of 126 million, according to 2020 census results, and one of the largest cities in the world in Mexico City, which has been the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the start.
The Lowy Institute also said that richer countries unsurprisingly had more resources available to fight the pandemic and performed better on average than developing countries for most of the crisis to date. However, it noted that “the relatively ‘low-tech’ nature of the health measures used to mitigate the spread of the virus to date, including large-scale lockdowns, may have created a more level playing field between developed and developing countries in the management of Covid-19.”
Mexico implemented a national social distancing initiative between late March and the end of May, which entailed the suspension of nonessential economic activities, but it never enforced a hard lockdown involving restrictions on people’s movement. Since early June, a stoplight system has been used to guide restrictions but freedom of movement has remained largely unaffected.
The Lowy Institute also examined the success or otherwise of different political systems in managing the pandemic.
“Despite initial differences, the performance of all regime types in managing the coronavirus converged over time,” it said.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
“On average, countries with authoritarian models had no prolonged advantage in suppressing the virus. Indeed, despite a difficult start and some notable exceptions, including the United States and the United Kingdom, democracies found marginally more success than other forms of government in their handling of the pandemic ….”
Mexico’s federal government, the fourth since a new era of democracy began in 2000 with the end of the the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s quasi-dictatorial, seven-decade rule, has maintained that people must retain their right to freedom amid the pandemic and as a result hasn’t enforced curfews or travel restrictions as some other countries have, or issued a federal mask mandate.
“The most important thing is freedom,” López Obrador said late last year when asked about a federal lawmaker’s refusal to wear a face mask during a meeting.
“People have to decide freely [what to do] and have confidence in [their fellow] Mexicans because they always act wisely, the people are wise,” he said.
The federal government has been widely condemned for its pandemic response, with much of the criticism focusing on Mexico’s low Covid-19 testing rate and the failure to enforce a strict lockdown.
The publication of the Lowy Institute’s performance index comes just after the news agency Bloomberg updated its “Covid Resilience” rankings. Mexico ranked last among the 53 countries included in Bloomberg’s index, which used 11 indicators to assess the coronavirus situation in individual countries and their government’s effectiveness in handling the pandemic.
Many people are dying in their homes, which might explain some of the difference.
Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll in the first eight months of 2020 was a lot higher than that reported by the federal government, according to data published Wednesday by the national statistics agency Inegi.
Inegi said that a preliminary analysis of death certificates indicated that there were 108,658 Covid-19 deaths in Mexico between January and August last year.
The figure is 44.8% higher than the 75,017 deaths that were attributed to the infectious disease in the first eight months of 2020.
Edgar Vielma Orozco, an Inegi director, said in a radio interview that the fact that a lot of Covid-19 victims have died at home rather than in hospital could partially explain the discrepancy between the Inegi and Health Ministry numbers.
“A lot of people are not dying in hospitals, they’re dying in their homes. In fact, the majority of people die in their homes – 58% die outside hospitals. That could partially explain this difference,” he said.
Similarly, Inegi president Julio Santaella told local media that the statistics agency’s count is based on death certificates while the Health Ministry uses hospital data.
Inegi also reported Wednesday that 673,260 deaths occurred between January and August 2020. The figure is 37.9% – or almost 185,000 – higher than the average number of deaths in the same period during the eight previous years.
The 108,658 Covid-19 fatalities in the January-August period account for 58.7% of the 184,917 “excess deaths.”
Covid-19 is likely to have been the cause of some of the other additional deaths although they were not classified as such. Some were likely the result of people with existing health problems not seeking out the medical attention they required out of fear that they could contract the coronavirus at hospitals and clinics.
Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic, recorded the biggest spike in deaths in the January-August period followed by México state, Veracruz and Jalisco.
Inegi reported that Covid-19 was the second-leading cause of death between January and August 2020 after heart disease, which claimed almost 142,000 lives in the period. Diabetes, which caused almost 100,000 fatalities, was the third most common cause of death.
The Health Ministry has previously reported that were more than 193,000 excess deaths between January 1 and September 26, 2020. It said in October that 139,153 of the excess deaths – or 72% – were judged to have been caused by Covid-19.
Mexico’s official death toll rose to 152,106 on Tuesday with 1,743 additional fatalities – the second highest single-day total of the pandemic – but the real toll is almost certainly closer to 200,000.
The accumulated case tally increased to almost 1.79 million after 17,165 new cases were reported on Tuesday. The case tally is also widely believed to be a significant undercount as Mexico’s Covid-19 testing rate is very low compared to many other countries.
A woman in the remote Oaxaca village of San José Tenango. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
It was an hour in on what would end up being a four-hour hike through the Sierra Juárez in Oaxaca when I discovered that my camera’s light meter wasn’t working.
I did the obvious: took the batteries out, wiped them off and put them back into the camera; the meter was still dead.
I did the obvious again. When that didn’t work, I turned the camera off and on several times, turned it upside down, shook it. I may have even given it a gentle tap or two. Nada. I was perplexed. I’d had the camera checked before the trip and swore I’d installed new batteries.
And then I simply swore.
Although I’d previously been to Mexico for a variety of projects, this was my first time heading deep into el campo: rural Mexico. I was going there because I’d written a series of articles about Mexican farmworkers in upstate New York, and after hearing their stories about what their lives were like back in Mexico, decided I needed to see conditions for myself.
Many in San José Tenango eke out a living from coffee.
A friend in Mexico City put me in contact with Instituto Maya, an organization that advocates for farmers, and they put me in contact with CEPCO, a fair-trade coffee organization based in Oaxaca that connected me with Candido and some other coffee growers in the Sierra Juárez. Candido’s mission was to make sure I made it to the Oaxaca village of San José Tenango.
To get there meant a seven-hour bus ride through switchback mountain roads at night in a hellacious thunderstorm during which the bus driver used his windshield wipers only intermittently. He did, however, blast Mexican rap music at ear-damaging levels.
After that, it was a three-hour wait in the back of a pickup truck (camioneta) in the predawn chill in Huautla, followed by another trip of just over two hours. Camionetas are essentially rural taxis that drive over mountain paths strewn with rocks and boulders. The soreness in my back, legs and butt — not to mention the bumps on my head from banging it on the overhead rail — attested to just how rocky the ride was.
I spent a few nights in Leonora’s home — she was another CEPCO member — while I waited for someone to take me deeper into the mountains. After three days, I was getting anxious to be on my way and was relieved when Leonora told me to pack my stuff. I was going with Maximiliano to San Martín.
“Take some mandarins,” she told me. “And some toilet paper.”
I was warned that the hike was strenuous, but I bike a lot and didn’t think it’d be a problem; it was.
A mother and child walking the coffee fields.
The steepness of the climb, combined with the altitude and — I’ll admit it — fear, left me exhausted. So I was relieved when Maximiliano signaled after about an hour that we were taking a break. He spoke Mazateco, a native language, and a few words of Spanish. I spoke some Spanish, but he didn’t understand most of what I said. It was a very quiet trek.
I talked with a friend in Oaxaca before going on this trip and mentioned I was concerned about getting sick.
“Joseph,” he sighed, “you know, Mexicans get sick too.”
So I decided not to worry. But during that short break, I watched Maximiliano as he crouched behind a large rock, filled a small Coke bottle with water and took a few sips. I assumed there must be a stream. When I went to look, I found that the water came from a muddy puddle.
I decided it was time to start worrying.
Soon afterward, I took my camera out of my backpack to take a few shots, and that’s when I learned something was wrong with my light meter. When Maximiliano signaled it was time to continue, I stashed the camera in my backpack and walked on, about as depressed as I ever was.
Abelardo and his wife housed the writer.
Leonora said the hike would be three hours, and when we reached that point, I asked Maximiliano (as well as I could) how much longer it would be. He must have understood me because indicated “a little more.”
We continued on, me believing that the end of the journey was always just around the next bend. I was having some trouble keeping up with him. I kept pace going uphill, but he dusted me on the downhills and flat stretches. Imagine my chagrin when I learned he was 72. I was a youthful 48.
Mercifully, after another hour, we arrived in San Martín. It was barely a village. Homes were widely spaced along a dirt path and were constructed of wood and tin. It was the poorest village I’d ever been in.
Maximiliano took me to Abelardo and Hortencia’s home, and they graciously agreed to let me stay. When Abelardo saw I was shivering, he kindly gave me a soda while Hortencia heated some soup.
It’s difficult to photograph without a light meter, but I made adjustments by over- and underexposing each shot. I was doing this for the first day when, late in the afternoon, the meter bounced back to life. I had no idea why but was extremely grateful. I then went nuts.
I spent two weeks photographing in San Martín and in Santa Catarina, shooting 40 rolls of film, a total of just over 1,400 images. I photographed women cooking, people harvesting coffee, doing other work. Then, as I was leaving Santa Catarina, the meter died again but my work was done.
A San José Tenango elder drinks the local brew.
When I got back to San José Tenango, I told Leonora what happened. Without any hesitation, she said, “It was Chigonido.”
I didn’t understand. “Who’s Chigonido?” I asked, reproducing the name as best I could.
“Chigonido is the local god,” she explained. “He didn’t want you to take photographs.”
“But people were OK with me taking photographs,” I said.
“It does not matter,” she said. “If he does not want you to take photographs, you cannot take photographs.”
I told several people in the village what had happened. They all confirmed that it was because of Chigonido — even a college-educated teacher agreed.
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When I took the camera to a store in Oaxaca, I expected to learn there was a serious problem and had already decided to call a friend back in the United States and have him ship down my other camera. But there was no need. The problem was the batteries: they were dead.
Later, as I thought about what happened, I couldn’t understand how dead batteries could come back to life for two weeks, allowing me to shoot 40 rolls of film before dying again, this time permanently. The only explanation I’ve come up with — and I’ll admit it’s a remote possibility — is that maybe the people back in San José Tenango were correct.
Or, rather, partially correct. Maybe Chigonido did step in. But instead of preventing me from photographing, he brought the batteries back to life, bailing me out.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
With thoughtful décor and no wet floors, Empress Carlota's bathroom at Chapultepec Castle might do well on the writer's rating system for Mexican bathrooms.
We interrupt today’s regularly scheduled anxiety-fueled opinion piece to pretend like we’re in “old times” and talk about something completely different: not Covid-19 or economics or human rights but bathrooms.
If you’ve lived in Mexico or even visited it for any significant amount of time, you know that the bathrooms can be experiences on their own. As someone who has to pee a lot and often, I like to think of myself as somewhat of a connoisseur at this point. If there’s a bathroom in a place I’ve visited, I’ve for sure been inside it.
Let’s start with home bathrooms. Those of you who’ve come from more-north North America have certainly noticed some major differences. First, most bathrooms here, even in large houses, are pretty tiny. Sitting down might have your knees knocking against the shower door or the cabinet under the sink (if there is one). Standing up could risk you bumping your head against the ceiling, as many half-baths are built under the stairs.
But there’s good news. There will probably be a mirror and toilet paper. There will probably be soap and a towel as well, which is really all you need. If you’re lucky, you might get to feast your eyes on some elaborately embroidered toilet and tank seat covers (they can be seasonal, too!). I’ve seen some great ones, but my favorites by far are Christmas themed.
Don’t expect to find countertops, cabinets or shelves. Such items have been — inexplicably, to me — somehow classified as either luxury or unnecessary items. Why these things have been equated with hanging chandeliers in closets is beyond me, and I work hard to supplement them however I can in nearly every house I’ve rented. I’ve also never found reading materials in anyone’s bathroom here, something I didn’t realize I’d miss until it wasn’t around.
From here, allow us to graduate to bathrooms in cafes and restaurants. As you can imagine, these can run a fairly large gamut, from literal toilets in the middle of a closet complete with swaying lightbulb to incredibly fancy get-ups with soft music and lights that come on automatically when you walk in.
Surprisingly, the fanciness of the establishment is not always indicative of the state of the bathroom. One not-cheap hipster burger-and-beer joint that was elaborately decorated and cared for had a dark bathroom with a sopping wet floor right by the kitchen. The metal door didn’t close all the way, and the toilet flushed by pulling on a string dangling out of a tank. I also had to ask for toilet paper to be put in the bathroom (spoiler alert for those who have bathrooms to stock: if the user has a vagina, they’re going to need toilet paper).
The nicest bathroom I’ve been in — it gets five stars! — was in a tea shop here in Xalapa. The walls were painted a pleasing charcoal with a slight sheen, and there were real plants on real dust-free wooden shelves and a cool, tiny white-tiled floor. Soft paper towels awaited me in a cute basket by the sink. The mirror had a beautiful frame, and it even had fancy scent-matched soap and lotion. The door locked, there was no mold or peeling paint and the light switch was immediately identifiable. 10/10.
A classification of bathrooms that some might not be familiar with are those found in municipal spaces. In parks, for example, bathrooms must be paid for. They are not necessarily nice or clean, but when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. So you pay your approximately six pesos, and an attendant hands you about 10 squares of toilet paper and a ticket for your entry. When you’re done, you’ll wash your hands with some kind of mystery soap: sometimes it’s liquid and sometimes it’s powder, but it’s always in a recycled plastic container with no label. My favorite mystery soap so far has been one that left my hands smelling exactly like the grape soda I used to love drinking as a kid.
Bus stations are another adventure. Sometimes there are attendants, but usually you simply put your coins into a turnstile and are mechanically allowed in. The space available in the turnstiles is quite small, and I’ve been known to carry either my bag or my kid over my head in order for us to fit through. Once inside, toilet paper is available in a dispenser on the wall, and you grab however much you think you might need. I’m always torn at this point between not wanting to waste paper and being afraid of not grabbing enough. I usually take a little extra and stick it in my pocket or purse for next time.
When I see stocked toilet paper dispensers inside stalls, I actually send up a little prayer of thanks. What a treat! The toilet seat might not be there but no matter! This is plenty. Thank you.
Back when I first came to Mexico, I used to joke with a friend that we should start a bathroom rating system for public establishments, like Yelp but for bathrooms! This could be done anywhere, of course, but with the variety available in Mexico, it can be an especially fun game.
Behold, the star system:
1 star: It is identifiable as a bathroom. That’s it.
2 stars: It has a door that closes, a light that works and running water.
3 stars: All of the above plus a lock on the door and a mirror. Soap and toilet paper are there without having to ask for them. There’s a toilet seat.
4 stars: All of the above, plus it’s clean: no mold, no sopping wet floors (oddly common here), moderately decorated and an easily findable light switch.
5 stars: All of the above, plus intentionally organized and decorated. A hook to hang your purse, fancy soap and lotion.
So there you have it, folks. It’s a fun game you can play with yourself while you’re out, as you’re pretty much guaranteed a new adventure with each trip. It also gives you something to think about other than the pandemic! Win-win.
I’m thinking of making a calendar next.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.
López-Gatell, right, met with officials in Argentina seeking details about Sputnik V.
Mystery surrounds Mexico’s apparently imminent approval of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.
A day after President López Obrador said that Russia had agreed to send 24 million doses of the two-shot vaccine to Mexico, a senior health official announced Tuesday that the first 200,000 doses would arrive next week.
On Tuesday night, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus point man, spoke of an approval process for the Sputnik vaccine that the Associated Press (AP) said “sounded like a Cold War spy thriller”and may not invite confidence in the shot.
The deputy minister said that a new medications technical committee had recommended approval of Sputnik V and that Cofepris, Mexico’s health regulator, only lacked “some details” to give it the green light.
“The technical part, the main part of Cofepris, particularly the committee on new medications, has given a favorable recommendation to authorize, that is to say, the crucial part has been solved,” López-Gatell said.
He also said he had not had access to the results of phase 3 trials despite speaking with Russian officials about the Sputnik vaccine over a period of weeks. Vaccine trial results, indicating efficacy and safety, are normally published in international medical journals but Russian authorities have to date only published limited data about the Sputnik V on the vaccine’s own website.
Russian officials have given conflicting accounts about the Sputnik vaccine, AP reported, increasing its supposed effectiveness to higher levels whenever a United States-made Covid-19 vaccine publishes its results.
As there was no data on the Sputnik vaccine published in journals, President López Obrador dispatched López-Gatell to Argentina, which has approved and is using the Russian vaccine, to see what he could find out about it.
According to AP, officials in Argentina had to call their counterparts in Russia to get permission to share confidential files on the Sputnik shot with Mexico.
Although López-Gatell said he hadn’t been able to get his hands of phase 3 results, AP said that the Argentines gave him a copy of them. The deputy minister apparently then submitted the results and other Sputnik data to Cofepris for the purpose of approving the vaccine, which Russia says is 91.4% effective.
But although the Cofepris technical committee recommended approval it turns out the vaccine application hasn’t even been formally filed yet, AP said.
“Mexican authorities apparently can’t grant authorization based on what may be a sheaf of photocopies from who-knows-where obtained through back channels,” the news agency said.
López-Gatell said Tuesday that the government is currently attempting to get Russian officials, who may have scant experience dealing with pesky regulators, to designate a person to formally submit a vaccine approval application that appears to have already been rubber stamped. (López Obrador said last week that approval was imminent and health officials have said much the same.)
That Mexico desperately needs access to more vaccines is unquestionable – the nation’s death toll passed 150,000 this week – but it remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient public confidence in the Sputnik V shot to make its purchase worthwhile – provided it is as effective as the Russians say it is.
National Action Party (PAN) Senator Xóchitl Gálvez questioned why the federal government is purchasing the Russian vaccine over others that are available and more widely trusted.
“The important thing is to save lives … [but] why buy a vaccine that doesn’t yet have the backing of the international scientific community, the World Health Organization or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” she wrote on Twitter.
“I do want vaccines, but ones that have been approved by the World Health Organization and the international scientific community,” tweeted Senator Lilly Téllez, who also represents the PAN. “The Russian vaccine does not have that yet. It is the cheap vaccine, that is why the government chose it.”
Mexico also has agreements to purchase the Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/Oxford University and CanSino Biologics vaccines. However, it has so far only received shipments of the Pfizer shot, which has been used to vaccinate frontline health workers.
More than 652,000 doses had been administered as of Tuesday night, leaving Mexico with around 114,000 unused ones. No further shipments of the Pfizer vaccine are expected until the middle of February because the pharmaceutical company is upgrading its Belgum plant while the AstraZeneca and Cansino shots likely won’t arrive before March.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s coronavirus case tally and Covid-19 death toll continue to climb at a rapid rate. The Health Ministry reported 17,165 new cases on Tuesday, pushing the accumulated tally to just under 1.79 million while the death toll rose by 1,743 to 152,016.
The author and her book, a damning indictment of the government's management of the coronavirus pandemic.
The federal government’s management of the coronavirus pandemic has been criminal in its negligence, according to a new book by a doctor and National Autonomous University (UNAM) academic.
Un daño irreparable: La criminal gestión de la pandemic en México (Irreparable Damage: The Criminal Management of the Pandemic in Mexico) by Dr. Laurie Ann Ximénez-Fyvie, director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at UNAM, takes aim at the federal government coronavirus strategy led by Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.
Ximénez-Fyvie, a Harvard University-trained doctor in medical sciences, criticizes the coronavirus response in a range of areas, asserting that the government responded slowly at the start of the pandemic and failed to implement the required mitigation measures. She also accuses the government of not testing enough, not being a good advocate for face masks and giving citizens poor advice about when to seek medical treatment if they or a family member becomes ill with Covid-19.
“None of what has happened was inevitable,” Ximénez-Fyvie wrote, referring to Mexico’s high coronavirus case tally and Covid-19 death toll. (The former is currently just under 1.8 million while the latter is 152,016).
“This hasn’t been an unpredictable or unfathomable event. The results we are living through today are the direct consequence of the decisions that have been taken to confront the problem.”
López-Gatell accused of knowingly mismanaging the pandemic response.
Whereas countries like Vietnam and Rwanda implemented strict lockdowns and closed their borders early in the pandemic when they had few cases, Mexico failed to do so, Ximénez-Fyvie wrote.
She contended that Mexico has been unable to cut coronavirus transmission chains because it hasn’t detected cases, especially asymptomatic ones, in a timely manner via widespread testing. The low testing rate – Mexico has only tested about 31 people per 1,000 inhabitants – has prevented authorities from understanding how the pandemic is behaving here, Ximénez-Fyvie argued.
“In Mexico, a supposedly democratic country, it has been impossible to have trustworthy statistics,” she wrote.
The UNAM academic took aim at López-Gatell for downplaying the effectiveness of face masks in stopping the spread of the virus, writing that his remarks have contributed to the worsening of the pandemic. She condemned the government for advising people not to go to hospital until their Covid-19 symptoms are serious.
“It was said not to go to hospital until the patient felt very sick. That was conducive to the spreading of infections [in people’s homes] and upon arriving at the hospital it was too late [in many cases],” Ximénez-Fyvie wrote.
In a radio interview, the doctor charged that López-Gatell, a Johns Hopkins University-trained epidemiologist, has knowingly mismanaged the pandemic response.
President López Obrador has been a staunch defender of his coronavirus point man in the face of wide criticism.
“He’s not ignorant, on the contrary he’s intelligent. … It’s not a mistake due to a lack of information but rather of a person who has taken a conscious decision not to do things as they should be done,” she told Radio Formula.
With regard to her book, Ximénez-Fyvie said that its intention is to serve as a testimony of what has happened since the coronavirus was first detected here almost a year ago.
“I don’t have hope that there will eventually be accountability but I do believe that there must be an objective record of what is happening, a record of why so many people have lost their lives in less than a year,” she said.
“The damage that is done is irreparable,” Ximénez-Fyvie said, arguing that the impact could have been much less had the government managed it better.
“It’s damage that vaccination won’t repair,” she added.
In a recent Twitter post, the academic said that in writing her book she “chose not to be indifferent to the pain of others and assume the immense responsibility of raising my voice in favor of health and life.”
“This [book] is my grain of sand. It’s too late for those who have already departed but there are a lot of lives left to save. The course [of managing the pandemic] has to be corrected.”
Un daño irreparable is available as an e-book now and will be in bookstores across the country in the coming days.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed all alcohol-based hand sanitizers from Mexico on a nationwide import alert in an effort to stop products with dangerous and even life-threatening forms of alcohol from entering the U.S. until the agency can further review their safety.
“Over the course of the ongoing pandemic, the agency has seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products from Mexico that were labeled to contain ethanol but tested positive for methanol contamination,” the agency said in an alert issued Wednesday.
Methanol, or wood alcohol, can be toxic when absorbed through the skin and life-threatening when ingested.
The FDA has been issuing warnings on its website about hand sanitizer products from Mexico — and other nations like China, Korea, and Turkey — throughout much of the pandemic, but this is the first time it has issued a countrywide import alert for any category of drug product.
Officials said they have identified seven deaths in the U.S. directly linked to hand sanitizers manufactured in Mexico that contained methanol.
The alert means that alcohol-based hand sanitizers imported from Mexico will be subject to heightened FDA scrutiny and that shipments can be detained by FDA staff.
The FDA’s analyses found 84% of samples from April through December 2020 were not in compliance with FDA regulations. More than half of the samples were found to contain toxic ingredients, including methanol and/or 1-propanol, at dangerous levels.
“Consumer use of hand sanitizers has increased significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, especially when soap and water are not accessible,” an FDA spokeswoman said. “The availability of poor-quality products with dangerous and unacceptable ingredients will not be tolerated.”
A list of all hand sanitizer products found by the FDA either to be potentially dangerous or simply ineffective can be found here.
Meanwhile, Mexican sanitizers were associated with a much different kind of danger this week — kidnappers.
According to Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch, officers arrested a pair of suspects in Miguel Hidalgo who were running a scam in which customers who thought they were buying large amounts of sanitization products were lured to a location where they were held against their will and ordered to pay large sums of money or have family members do so in exchange for their release.
One of two vehicles in which the bodies were found last weekend in Tamaulipas.
The United Nations High Commission on Human Rights in Mexico has compared the discovery of 19 charred bodies in Tamaulipas last weekend with two notorious massacres in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León in 2010 and 2012.
“These deeds recall the massacres that occurred in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, in 2010 and in Cadereyta, Nuevo León in 2012, where the families of victims continue in search of the truth, justice, and reparations,” said UN representative Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado.
He said “the lack of truly safe, orderly, and regular migration alternatives pushes migrants to resort to human traffickers or dangerous routes,” and that this puts them at risk of being possible victims of “serious violations” of human rights.
In the 2010 incident in San Fernando, the military found 72 bodies of undocumented migrants at a ranch after an armed confrontation with members of the Zetas cartel. In the 2012 incident, authorities found 49 dismembered bodies dumped on the side of a road in Cadereyta.
Tamaulipas authorities continue to work on identifying the 19 bodies found in Camargo near the United States border. The bodies, which also showed signs of gunshot wounds, were found in two burned vehicles. According to area residents, the victims may have been Guatemalan migrants seeking passage to the United States, but authorities have not confirmed anything about the identities of the bodies except their gender.
Tamaulipas Security Ministry spokesman Luis Alberto Rodríguez told Milenio Television that authorities have been able to establish that 16 of the bodies are male and one is female. The gender of the two other bodies has not yet been determined, he said.
Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero took issue with Fernández-Maldonado’s statement during President López Obrador’s daily press conference Wednesday, saying that the Camargo incident was not similar to the San Fernando massacre because the former is being thoroughly investigated.
“Every day since this event happened we have been in the [security] cabinet viewing the advances [the investigation] has made,” she said. “I can tell you with great certainty that they have advanced a lot.”
Guatemala Vice President Guillermo Reyes condemned the massacre while adding that his nation’s government was waiting for updated information to provide clarity in the case.
Mexican authorities have taken DNA samples of the bodies as part of their investigation, and the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Guatemalan congressional Deputy Douglas Rivero are making preparations for the victims to be repatriated to Guatemala if indeed any of them turn out to be from there.
