Approving Russian vaccine is right out of a Cold War spy thriller

By

-

January 27, 2021

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.

Source: AP (en)

Irreparable damage: book accuses negligence in management of Covid pandemic

By

MND Staff

-

January 27, 2021

0

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.”

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 and lopez gatell — 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.

Source: Infobae (sp), Sin Embargo (sp), La Lista (sp)

US agency issues alert over Mexican-made hand sanitizers

By

Michelle Aguilar

-

January 27, 2021

0

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.

The FDA issued a prohibition last year against 37 Mexican companies to prevent them from exporting their products.

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.

Mexico News Daily

UN compares discovery of 19 bodies to unsolved massacres

By

Michelle Aguilar

-

January 27, 2021

0

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.

Sources: Milenio (sp)

Poppy farmers’ ultimatum: ‘Get the soldiers out and leave our crops alone’

By

MND Staff

-

January 27, 2021

0

A soldier at work destroying opium poppy plants.

Opium poppy farmers in a Tierra Caliente municipality of Guerrero are demanding that the army stop destroying their crops and leave.

“The soldiers are still here destroying [the crops] and what we want is for them to go,” a San Miguel Totolapan poppy farmer told the newspaper Reforma in a telephone interview.

The farmer said that he and other poppy growers are drawing up a list of demands to be submitted to President López Obrador and Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo. First and foremost is the withdrawal of the army from the Sierra section of the Tierra Caliente (hotlands) region.

“We’re going to give the government a few days to attend to us,” the farmer said.

Reforma reported that poppy farmers from seven communities confronted soldiers last weekend after they destroyed 50 hectares of plants. The army has been eradicating poppy crops in Guerrero and states such as Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango for years.

[wpgmza id=”283″]

Guerrero farmers have appealed to López Obrador to legalize the cultivation of opium poppies for use in the manufacture of legal pharmaceuticals but although there have been signs that the government is open to considering the possibility, that hasn’t occurred.

The price paid for opium paste – the raw ingredient of heroin – has plummeted in recent years due to lower demand brought about by the increasing popularity in the United States of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The sharp decline in price has left many poppy farmers in a precarious financial situation.

The San Miguel Totolapan farmer said that a kilogram of opium paste currently sells for 8,000 pesos (US $395) while at the start of the previous federal government’s 2012-2018 term, a kilo went for between 25,000 and 30,000 pesos (US $1,235 to $1,485 at today’s exchange rate).

The farmer said the drop in opium prices has forced poppy growers to survive on a very basic diet.

“We have beans, corn and chiles but we can no longer buy meat and milk,” he said. “We’re forgotten here and up until now the government hasn’t given us any support.”

The farmer called on federal and state officials to travel to the Tierra Caliente and speak with ordinary people and local leaders about the problems they face and ways to resolve them.

Source: Reforma (sp)

French expat finds greater opportunity in Mexico’s business landscape

By

Ingrid Ots

-

January 27, 2021

0

Nicolas Tranchart flying a gyrocopter over Teotihuacan, a feat he says he'd never be allowed to do in his native France. — Nicolas Tranchart flying a gyrocopter over Teotihuacán, a feat he says he'd never be allowed to do in his native France.

When Vivalatina founder Nicolas Tranchart came to Mexico from his native France eight years ago as an experienced engineer, he knew that it was a perfect time for a new beginning.

“After being an employee for a long time, I wanted to become an entrepreneur,” he says.

Tranchart brought with him his fledgling jewelry business, which is now based in Puerto Vallarta and has expanded into making custom-designed pieces. His arrival was not his first time in Mexico, however. Tranchart first came in 2004 while in college and worked for a while in a Querétaro company, then eventually moved to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, to work in a factory. It was there that he met his wife Reyna. The couple initially moved back to France, but because French labor law prevented Reyna from working in her field of medicine, they decided to come back to her home country after four years of trying to adapt to Europe.

“Eight years from there, I can say that both of us have more opportunities here than we would have had in France,” Tranchart says.

The idea for his startup came to him during his period when he had returned to France. While Tranchart was still working full-time as a mechanical engineer, he decided to sell some Mexican jewelry — first to friends and then online. Local contacts in Taxco helped him with importing pieces. But once they returned to Mexico, Tranchart decided to concentrate on the business idea completely so that he didn’t have to start from scratch. He also liked the idea of keeping connections to his homeland.

Eight years ago, Tranchart moved his business to Mexico.

For the first four years business was slow, with annual sales at barely US $3,000. But then clients started asking him for custom pieces. He began working with jewelers based in Puerto Vallarta who could do personalized designs.

“After a few months, I could see that it was better than just reselling,” he said. “I improved my offers, publicity and many other things to find my niche, to grow.”

As he grew, Tranchart noted that he had two types of competitors: large companies that make standardized jewelry sourced locally or from China and jewelers working alone who had good craftsmanship and quality but no knowledge of how to sell their work online. Tranchart saw his mission as positioning Vivalatina between the two groups.

The strategy has worked. Last year alone, the company made around 200 sales in France and Europe.

“It’s not about numbers, it’s about quality,” he said. His business’s next goal, he says, is to expand into the United States market.

With increased demand, Tranchart has found himself drawing upon his engineering skills, bringing in more advanced software for rendering and machines that do casting and stone-setting. His office also boasts a homemade 3-D printer that helped cut costs even further.

Tranchart's gyrocopter — Tranchart’s gyrocopter

“In France, many jewelers work with subcontractors to complete every stage of jewelry making, and here we can do everything in the shop ourselves. It’s a mix between my knowledge of the French market, the advantages that Mexico offers — like cheaper labor and less tax — and the technology that can make it all work,” he explains.

Tranchart now relies on two Mexican jewelers and an assistant on-site, as well as a network of trusted providers. With time, he has managed to find the right people and adapt to Mexican work culture.

“I became much cooler so that I don’t have a nervous breakdown when somebody doesn’t arrive exactly on time,” he says.

And he’s learned to deal with even serious setbacks. A couple of years ago, when he was still renting his shop location, the police came and knocked on the door, telling him he had to leave because the landlord who had rented him the shop had done so illegally. The entrepreneur had to pack up very quickly and move everything he had onto the street. But this and other difficulties he’s encountered have taught him resilience.

“I’m actually more confident now than in France, when I was not doing anything extraordinary but was still worried about something most of the time,” he says. “Here I know that things can happen but there will be always someone to help you when you need it.”

He is also convinced that it’s much easier to grow your business in Mexico than in his home country.

“If someone writes me an email at 8 p.m. in France, it’s 1 p.m. here, and I can text back immediately. Usually, the clients feel amazed because no one replies to them so quickly,” he says. “I have clients in Europe, in the U.S. I’ve got providers in Israel, in Asia. My team is with me here, so I’m not alone anymore. It’s like an endeavour, an adventure.”

To start a business here, Tranchart says, you need to learn the language and to try to understand the local culture.

“My point is, there are always solutions. There is always someone willing to work, willing to help,” he said. “Once you’ve better learned the language and the country, you can do anything you want.”

As an example of Mexico’s openness, he cites his hobby flying gyrocopters. He once flew 50 meters over the Teotihuacán pyramids with a friend.

“That would have been totally forbidden in Europe, or perhaps anywhere else,” he says. “My wife says, ‘In Mexico everything is possible, you just have to find a way.’”

Nicolas Tranchart’s international jewelry business can be found online.

Mexico News Daily

Although US quarantine details remain unclear, flights canceled as travelers wary

By

MND Staff

-

January 27, 2021

0

Passengers were left stranded in Cancún because their Covid test results were no longer current.

Some people are canceling their plans to travel to the United States due to a new U.S. quarantine rule even though it is not currently being enforced.

Several flights that were scheduled to depart Mexico City on Tuesday for cities in the United States were canceled because many of the would-be passengers canceled their reservations.

An employee of the Mexican airline Volaris told the newspaper Reforma that at least five flights were canceled, including services to Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. The worker said that flights to the United States were oversold on Monday but some were left with as few as eight passengers on Tuesday due to cancellations.

“They don’t take off like that [with so few passengers],” he said. “A lot [of people] canceled because they thought it was mandatory to stay in confinement for seven days in the United States. But that’s not the case, that’s just a recommendation.”

The CEO of Volaris said there is uncertainty surrounding the quarantine rule, which stems from an executive order signed by United States President Joe Biden last Thursday and took effect on Tuesday. Enrique Beltranena said he interpreted the quarantine directive as a “recommendation” rather than a hard and fast rule, asserting that the presentation of a negative Covid-19 test is the only mandatory requirement for travelers to the United States.

Biden’s executive order stated that travelers entering the United States are required to comply with Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) recommended periods of self-quarantine. The CDC recommends that people stay at home for seven days after returning from high risk international travel even if they test negative for Covid-19.

“Everyone flying to the U.S. from another country will need to test before they get on that plane, before they depart, and quarantine when they arrive in America,” Biden said, referring to his executive order.

However, The Washington Post reported that the CDC said in an email Monday that it will not enforce its quarantine guidelines. “There is not a mandatory, federal quarantine,” the agency said.

Biden’s executive order asked federal U.S. agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop plans that “shall identify agencies’ tools and mechanisms to assist travelers in complying with such policy” within two weeks of the signing of the order.

But as things stand no enforceable quarantine rule is in place across the United States.

CDC spokeswoman Caitlin Shockey told the Post that the current legislation doesn’t amount to “a mandatory quarantine” requirement, describing the rule as “just a recommendation.”

The airport at Mazatlán is one of several where Covid testing stations have been installed.

The Post reported that “travel experts and officials say that quarantine enforcement will be tricky, but that following the CDC’s guidance as a requirement would be safest.”

However, airlines are enforcing the negative Covid-19 test requirement. (The U.S. accepts the results of both antigen and PCR tests.)

There were reports on Tuesday that some people were unable to check in to flights to the United States from the airports in Mexico City and Cancún, Quintana Roo, either because they didn’t have a negative Covid-19 test or the negative result they had wasn’t obtained in the previous 72 hours.

To facilitate the negative test requirement of the United States and some other countries, the Pacific Airport Group has made PCR and antigen Covid-19 testing available at its airports in Guadalajara, Tijuana, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, Mexicali, Morelia, La Paz, Aguascalientes, Los Mochis and Manzanillo.

Many other Mexican airports, including those in Cancún, Monterrey and Mexico City, have also set up testing facilities, while many large hotel chains that cater to American visitors have announced they will offer onsite testing or help connect customers to nearby labs and hospitals,

At the Mexico City airport, a testing station has been installed in terminal 1 between doors 3 and 4. More testing stations will be set up in the airport in the coming days, the federal Communications and Transportation Ministry said.

At the terminal 1 testing station, an antigen test costs 680 pesos (US $34) and results are available in 15 minutes while a PCR test costs 2,500 pesos (US $124) and results return in 24 hours. Travelers to Canada and some European countries, among others around the world, are required to present a negative PCR test, which are considered more accurate than rapid tests.

The United States’ (as yet unenforced) quarantine rule, and the negative Covid-19 test requirement, is likely not only to cause more people to cancel plans to travel from Mexico to the U.S. but also vice versa.

Fernando Gómez Suárez, a tourism and aviation expert, said earlier this week that fewer U.S. tourists will come to Mexico if they have to go into isolation for at least seven days upon returning home. Such a situation would, of course, have a negative impact on the Mexican tourism sector, which has already been hit hard by the pandemic and associated restrictions.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, the United States’ testing and quarantine requirements will result in millions of fewer tourists coming to Mexico and cost the tourism sector at least US $1.6 billion in lost revenue.

About six in 10 international tourists who came to Mexico last year were from the United States, according to federal data, a figure that emphasizes the importance of the U.S. market. Locked out of European countries and other popular tourism destinations around the world due to the raging pandemic at home, United States tourists have flocked to the Quintana Roo resorts of Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, as well as other Mexican destinations such as Mexico City, even as Mexico faces its own extremely bad coronavirus situation.

(As of Tuesday, confirmed cases totaled almost 1.8 million and the Covid-19 death toll was just over 152,000.)

Unlike many countries, Mexico has not restricted flights from any foreign nation during the coronavirus pandemic. It hasn’t required foreign travelers or Mexicans returning home to quarantine upon arrival in the country either.

The lack of rules for international travelers and the absence of hard lockdown measures has made Mexico an attractive – and accessible – destination for people fed up with restrictions at home and eager to get away.

Now, however, it appears inevitable that the new U.S. rules will stop at least some United States citizens from fleeing south, and as an unintended byproduct cause more economic pain for a tourism sector that is heavily dependent on Americans and the dollars they bring.

Source: Reforma (sp), El Financiero (sp), The Washington Post (en)

Netflix to invest US $300 million in Mexico this year

By

MND Staff

-

January 26, 2021

0

Netflix will invest more than US $300 million in Mexico this year to make about 50 original productions.

Forbes México reported that the “Netflix originals” will either be local productions or international ones to be filmed here.

The slated 2021 investment is 50% higher than the $200 million the content platform and production company allocated to Mexico projects last year.

Forbes said that Netflix also provided it with information about other plans it has in Mexico. The business magazine and website said that the company is in the process of opening a new office in Mexico City that will become Netflix’s Latin America headquarters.

“We’re excited about the opening this year of our Latin America headquarters in Mexico City. We expect that by the end of 2021, our regional office will have more than 100 employees,” Netflix said.

On January 1, 2021, Netflix México officially came into existence as a separate entity to its parent company. It is the exclusive local distributor of Netflix services to Mexican customers.

News of the $300-million investment in new content will no doubt excite lovers of Mexican-made Netflix originals. Control Z, a teen drama, and Oscuro Deseo (Dark Desire), a thriller series, were among the Mexican productions that were extremely popular with audiences here and in many other countries around the world last year.

Netflix told Forbes that it intends to go beyond drama this year and delve into the comedy, adventure and action genres. It also said it would make reality programs and documentaries.

“All these titles will be from Mexico for Mexico and the world,” Netflix said.

The popular streaming service has about 200 million subscribers around the world, including approximately 7 million in Mexico.

Source: Forbes México (sp)

200,000 doses of Russian vaccine are en route, but Sputnik V still unapproved

By

MND Staff

-

January 26, 2021

0

A shipment of about 200,000 doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine will arrive in Mexico next week, a senior health official said Tuesday.

But it is not yet known when the doses may be administered because Cofepris, Mexico’s health regulator, has not authorized the Russian vaccine.

Juan Ferrer, head of the government’s universal health care scheme, announced the forthcoming arrival of the first of many shipments of the two-shot Sputnik V, telling reporters at a press conference Tuesday morning that the purchase “opens up new hope” for Mexico.

The news comes after President López Obrador said Monday that he reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin for 24 million doses of the adenoviral vector-based vaccine to be sent to Mexico.

Sputnik V – which the Russian government says is 91.4% effective – was approved by Iran on Tuesday and was earlier authorized by Argentina, Algeria, Bolivia, Hungary, the Palestinian Authority, Paraguay, Serbia, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, according to The New York Times vaccine tracker.

López Obrador said last week that Cofepris’ approval of the vaccine was imminent, and Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said much the same on Monday night. Ferrer said Tuesday that the health regulator already has all the necessary documentation to assess the vaccine’s suitability for approval.

Russia said that no unexpected adverse events were identified in phase three trials and the director of the government institute that made it said it is highly effective and completely safe.

But a molecular biologist claims that Russia failed to provide sufficient information to back up its claims. Roselyn Lemus-Martin, an Oxford University-educated cancer and Covid-19 researcher, told the newspaper Milenio that scientists have detected that some of the data published by Russia about the Sputnik V vaccine was falsified and is not correct.

She also raised concerns about the potential for Cofepris to approve the Russian shot quickly “without correctly assessing the efficacy and safety data.”

In addition, Lemus-Martin expressed concern about China’s single-shot CanSino Biologics Covid-19 vaccine – of which Mexico intends to purchase 35 million doses – saying that it generates a very weak response in people aged over 55 and therefore shouldn’t be given to seniors.

The federal government presented a five-stage vaccination plan in December that stipulates that health workers will be immunized in the first stage and seniors in the second. First preference in the second stage will go to those aged over 80 followed by those in the 70-79 and 60-69 age brackets.

The government has so far announced plans to use the Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Sputnik V and CanSino vaccines to inoculate all Mexicans who agree to being vaccinated. As of Tuesday afternoon, Cofepris had only approved the first two.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who is leading the government’s pandemic response, said Monday that Mexico was not currently planning to purchase the Moderna vaccine, which works in a similar way to the Pfizer shot (but is more expensive) and has already been approved in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

“With the different purchases we have up until now, we calculate we’ll have enough” vaccines to inoculate all citizens, he said.

The deputy minister said that Moderna, a United States-based pharmaceutical company, has approached Mexico about authorizing its Covid-19 vaccine, adding that the possibility could be considered at a later date. (One advantage the Moderna vaccine has over the Pfizer one – both vaccines are about 95% effective – is that it can be stored at regular, rather than ultra-low, freezer temperatures.)

Meanwhile, Mexico continues to administer the Pfizer vaccine to health workers although the pace of application has declined in recent days. The delivery of new shipments has been delayed as the pharmaceutical company carries out work to upgrade its plant in Belgium.

Only 8,279 doses were administered on Monday, according to data presented at the Health Ministry’s nightly coronavirus press briefing, lifting the total number of shots applied to health workers to just over 642,000. More than half a million health workers have only received one of the two required doses.

Preparations are underway to begin the vaccine rollout to seniors. It appears likely that the first jabs will be administered to Mexico’s dones and doñas sometime in early February.

Ferrer, the government’s universal health care chief, said Tuesday that the Welfare Ministry is currently calling seniors to find out whether they want to be vaccinated or not. He noted that there are approximately 15 million seniors in Mexico, adding that about 20% are housebound and will have to be vaccinated at their homes.

The government is aiming to vaccinate most of the nation’s older population by the end of March. Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last week the government expects to inoculate almost 14.2 million people by the end of that month, a figure that represents about 11% of Mexico’s total population.

Source: Reforma (sp), Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Narcos pay civilians to attack police in Michoacán: state security officials

By

MND Staff

-

January 26, 2021

0

Efforts by security forces are hampered by actions of local residents.

Civilians in the Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán are paid by narcos to attack police, according to the state security minister.

Israel Patrón Reyes told the newspaper Milenio that residents of communities such as Pizándaro, Cenobio Moreno and Las Colonias – all of which are located in the municipality of Apatzingán – are on the payroll of the Viagras crime gang.

The security minister charged that residents are manipulated by a cell of the Viagras to carry out attacks on state and federal security forces.

“Unfortunately, the records we have [indicate] that they [the residents] receive an amount of money, it might be 300 pesos [US $15] a day or 1,500 or 2,000 pesos [US $70 to $100] a week, to belong to this crime group,” Patrón said.

He added that authorities have information that residents are paid 2,000 pesos for each vehicle they set alight when the Viagras call for a highway blockade to be erected to thwart police operations.

Patrón said that members of the “Los Viagra” cell of the Viagras gang convince Tierra Caliente residents to support them by making them believe that there is a resurgence of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in the region.

“We have identified the cell that is manipulating these people [men, women and children],” he said, adding that the real turf war is between “Los Viagra” and another Viagras cell known as “Los Blancos de Troya.”

The two cells have made their dispute public on social media, Patrón said. The security minister asserted that the recent increase in violence in the Tierra Caliente region is related to the dispute between criminals and not a resurgence of self-defense groups.

Unlike 2013 when self-defense forces formed to fight the Caballeros Templarios cartel because people were fed up with the failure of the government to respond to high levels of homicides, kidnapping and extortion, state and federal authorities are now addressing the crime problem, Patrón said.

“Today it’s very different, society does have a response from the government,” he said, explaining that state police, the army and the National Guard are permanently deployed in the Tierra Caliente region and collaborating closely.

However, in recent months, “there have been attacks related to highway blockades – the burning of vehicles so that the [government] institutions don’t move forward,” Patrón said.

“Mainly women and children, … [as well as] some men, come out … with sticks, stones and machetes, trying to get the government … [forces] to leave the area.”

The Tierra Caliente region of Michoacán has long been notorious for violent crime. Much of the violence in recent years has been caused by the turf war between the Viagras and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Source: Milenio (sp)