Murals adorn the first two houses in a new sustainable housing program.
As it handed over new houses on Sunday to the first two recipients, the government of Puebla took the first steps toward delivering nearly 1,900 environmentally and economically friendly housing units to low-income citizens across the state.
Rosa and Adriana Conde received keys to their new homes in San Andrés Azumiatla, which was rated in 2010 as high in marginalization with 63% of homes lacking running water and 67% lacking a refrigerator.
The 50-square-meter, two-bedroom homes, equipped with solar hot water heaters and ecological stoves, were awarded as part of the state’s “Make a Home, Make a Future” program, which operates with federal funds via the state’s Ministry of Wellbeing.
The program, which began constructing new homes in November and has been providing other sorts of home-improvement benefits to marginalized communities throughout 2020, has promised to provide 1,870 such environmentally friendly homes by the end of 2021, with 870 to be delivered in March. According to state officials, the program is expected to benefit 7,480 people living below the poverty line in overcrowded conditions and without basic services.
Priority is given to single mothers, adults with disabilities, families with children, indigenous people, and senior citizens. However, recipients of homes are required to provide their own piece of land to build on.
Deputy Housing Minister José Antonio López Ruiz said the program has so far impacted 185,000 families in 90 of Puebla’s municipalities — many with forward-thinking home improvements ranging from solar heaters, ecological stoves, and nonconventional electricity sources to rainwater collection units.
Doses of vaccine arrive at a vaccination center for teachers in Campeche.
The federal government fell short of its Covid-19 vaccination target for the end of January by almost 40%.
The government said in December that 1.1 million vaccine doses would be administered to health care workers by January 31.
But as of Sunday night, only 673,327 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine – 61% of the target – had been given, according to federal Health Ministry data.
Of that number, 631,485 doses were administered as the first of the required two shots, while 41,842 doses were given as second shots. That means that only 6.6% of people who received a first shot of the Pfizer vaccine have the fuller protection provided by two shots.
Health Ministry data shows that Mexico has received a total of 766,350 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and used almost 88% of them.
As of Sunday night, there were only 93,000 unused doses in the country, and the next shipment of Pfizer vaccines is not expected until February 10 at the earliest because the company is currently updating its Belgium plant in order to boost production.
It is already clear that Mexico will not be able to administer all of the second required shots 21 days after the first ones were administered, as Pfizer says should occur. Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, the government’s coronavirus point man, acknowledged as much on January 18 but stressed that the second dose can be administered up to 42 days after the first according to World Health Organization guidelines.
But due to the delay in delivery of further shipments of the Pfizer vaccine, it appears unlikely that Mexico will be able to meet that timetable for all people who have received one shot to date.
In addition to failing to meet its end of January vaccination target, the government didn’t keep to its plan to inoculate frontline health workers only between December 24, the day the first shot was administered in Mexico, and January 31.
An unknown number of so-called “servants of the nation” who are part of part of brigades of health workers, military personnel and volunteers that have been tasked with distributing and administering Covid-19 vaccines have received a shot of the Pfizer vaccine as have about 17,000 teachers in Campeche.
With regard to the former, López-Gatell claimed that their participation in the vaccination brigades made them eligible for early immunization, even though the government’s vaccination plan makes it clear that they should not be inoculated until March at the earliest.
The justification for vaccinating teachers in Campeche – even when some of the approximately 750,000 frontline health workers had yet received a first dose of the Pfizer shot – was that the Yucatán Peninsula state was low risk green on the federal government stoplight map and a return to in-person classes was possible.
However, that is no longer the case because the infection risk in Campeche rose to yellow light medium on Monday, having switched to that level on the updated stoplight map presented by health authorities on Friday.
Nevertheless, the vaccination of teachers in Campeche will continue because authorities are confident that the state will soon return to green, Health Ministry official Ricardo Cortés said Friday.
The decision to vaccinate teachers has been criticized on social media, where some users questioned why the government was rolling out the vaccine in a low risk state when Mexico City and several other states are going through their worst outbreaks since the coronavirus was first detected here almost a year ago.
Indeed, January was easily the worst month of the pandemic in Mexico in terms of both new coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths.
The Health Ministry reported 438,166 new cases in January, an increase of 40% compared to December, which was previously the worst month with 312,551 cases registered.
Reported Covid-19 deaths numbered 32,729 last month, a 65% surge compared to the previous monthly record of 19,867 deaths, which was also set in December.
Hospital occupancy for general care beds is 87% in Mexico City and 82% in México state, according to federal data, and above 70% in Puebla, Hidalgo, Morelos, Guanajuato, Nuevo León and Nayarit. All eight of those states, and five others, are maximum risk red on the coronavirus stoplight map.
In a country with a population of 126 million, it will at least be several months before vaccination begins to have a significant impact on the coronavirus pandemic. However, President López Obrador – currently ill with the virus himself – expressed optimism in a video message on Friday that the death rate will decline once the nation’s seniors are vaccinated.
He said that Mexico will receive 18 million vaccine doses in February and March and predicted that people aged over 60 will have received at least one dose of a vaccine by the end of the latter month.
Mexico expects to receive shipments of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and CanSino Biologics vaccines this month, although only the first two have so far been approved by the health regulator Cofepris.
A chameleon found in a box at the airport in Querétaro.
Saturday was a busy day for the transportation of protected species: in three different states, authorities discovered chameleons, turtles, and baby crocodiles and caimans being transported illegally.
In none of the cases did the animals have accompanying paperwork to show legal acquisition or permission to transport them, all of which are protected species under Mexican law. The animals are now in the custody of the environmental protection agency Profepa.
Authorities found two chameleons and eight turtles at the Querétaro and the San Luis Potosí international airports, respectively. In both cases, the animals were being transported in cardboard boxes through package delivery services with locations at the airports.
In the Querétaro case, the chameleons were found by National Guard dogs trained to sniff out drugs, firearms and cash. According to the package’s paperwork, the reptiles had been shipped from Celaya, Guanajuato, and were destined for Monterrey, Nuevo León.
At San Luis Potosí, eight turtles were discovered wrapped inside socks. The protected species were discovered while guard members were doing routine inspections. The turtles had been sent from Solidaridad, Quintana Roo, and were supposed to be sent on to San Juan del Río, Querétaro.
In Villaflores, Chiapas, about 95 kilometers south of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, federal authorities were alerted by a citizen’s tip to a shipment of 39 crocodiles and caimans being transported stacked on top of each other in a Styrofoam cooler at a taxi dispatching station.
Site of the solar farm on the Oaxaca coast. Work has been stalled since the fall.
Residents of a small fishing village in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region of Oaxaca continue to live without electricity because construction of a solar farm promised by the federal government is stalled.
Located on a thin strip of land between the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the Laguna Inferior, Santa María del Mar hasn’t had power for 10 years after supply was cut off by the neighboring municipality of San Mateo del Mar amid an agrarian dispute.
A fund for the farm, which is expected to cost 45 million pesos (US $2.2 million), was created in mid-June and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) started to build it. However, the project was delayed for 10 months because people opposed to it prevented solar panels and other materials from reaching the site.
Work restarted in August last year but was soon suspended again with only 30% of the project completed.
Efraín Solano, an advisor to the residents of Santa María del Mar, told the newspaper Reforma that it was originally anticipated that the project would be finished in March or April this year.
But it will be impossible to meet that timetable as the partially-built solar farm is currently abandoned with no clear information about when the project might resume.
“All the while, we’re still without electricity. There hasn’t been power for 10 years,” Solano said.
He said that erosion has occurred at the solar farm site and that the CFE has been informed but has disregarded the information.
Reforma reported that 20 locals hired by the CFE to work on the project are not currently being paid. The newspaper also said that residents are demanding that the state-owned company complete the project and provide details about the location of the funds promised for it.
Tourism sector revenue could decrease by US $782 million as a result of the three-month suspension of flights from Canada to Mexico, according to Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco.
In a statement issued by the Tourism Ministry on Sunday, Torruco said there could be up to 791,000 fewer tourists as a result of the coronavirus prevention measures announced by the Canadian government.
In addition to the suspension of flights between January 31 and April 30, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday that all travelers entering the country will have to undergo Covid-19 PCR testing upon arrival at Canadian airports and go into quarantine at hotels for up to three days at their own expense.
The Canadian government said Friday that the mandatory quarantine requirement will start “as soon as possible in the coming weeks.”
Torruco said the cost of the new measures to the Mexican tourism industry could be less than estimated. The Canadian restrictions are similar to those imposed by the United States government and can be mitigated by Mexican airlines and hotels in tourist destinations offering Covid-19 testing to travelers before they return home.
However, it was unclear how Covid-19 testing in Mexico could make up for the hundreds of thousands of Canadian travelers who won’t arrive over the next three months.
Torruco also said that the new Canadian rules could reduce the flow of Mexican travelers to Canada by 372,000, costing that country US $368 million in lost revenue. Aeroméxico announced that it would suspend flights from Mexico to Canada from the second week of February until April 30
The coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions had an outsized impact on the Mexican tourism industry in 2020 and hopes of a better 2021 have been thwarted by new rules put in place by several countries in light of the emergence of new, more contagious strains of the virus.
A United States rule requiring travelers to present a negative Covid-19 test before boarding flights to that country took effect last Tuesday. According to an executive order signed by United States President Joe Biden, people entering the U.S. are also required to followed Centers for Disease Prevention and Control guidelines and go into isolation for at least seven days.
Coronavirus restrictions and a reduced frequency of flights are also affecting travel to Mexico from European nations, Argentina and Cuba, among other countries. Mexicans cannot enter the EU for nonessential travel and people traveling to France, Spain and the Netherlands have to present a negative Covid-19 test before boarding flights.
The newspaper Milenio reported that Cuba is reducing flights to Mexico and several other countries to just one per week starting February 6 and Argentina has ordered airlines to reduce the frequency of flights to and from Mexico, Brazil, the United States and Europe.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
The expected decline in international arrivals is a double-edged sword for Mexico. While fewer tourists is in one respect welcome because it inevitably means fewer cases of the coronavirus are imported, the reduction in visitor numbers also means lower or no income for the millions of people who work in the tourism sector, which before the pandemic contributed to almost 10% of GDP.
Mexico is currently confronting a dual economic and health crisis, with GDP falling 8.5% in 2020 and confirmed coronavirus case numbers approaching 2 million.
As of Monday, 13 states are maximum risk red on the federal government stoplight map, meaning that their economies will function well below capacity for at least the first half of February. Seventeen states are high risk orange on the map while just two – Campeche and Chiapas – are medium risk yellow.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally increased to 1.86 million on Sunday with 7,030 new cases registered while the Covid-19 death toll rose to 158,536 with 462 additional fatalities.
On Saturday, there were 15,337 new cases and 1,495 additional deaths.
Artisan Sirena Tellez Corona's acquisition of a sewing machine transformed her business. Leigh Thelmadatter
As a newbie to Mexico on one of my first trips to Oaxaca I was captivated by huge swaths of cloth almost entirely covered in embroidery. Having been a quilter, I know the time and torn-up fingertips necessary to do this kind of needlework.
This was how I met Tenango embroidery for the first time.
At first, I assumed that this cloth I saw was from Oaxaca, given the location of the market and the state’s reputation for handcrafts. Actually, Tenango embroidery isn’t from Oaxaca at all but from a small region on the Hidalgo-Puebla border, home to an Otomí (or hñuhñu) community largely unknown to the rest of Mexico and completely unknown to the world.
Tenango folk art is named after Tenango de Doria, a municipality in Hidalgo right on the border with Puebla. Otomí artisans practicing this craft can be found further afield in both states, especially in Pahuatlán, a municipality in northwest Puebla. While some artisans make and embroider ready-to-use items like shirts, bags or tablecloths, others simply embroider raw cloth for sale.
This region is part of the Sierra Madre Oriental, a rugged mountainous area that receives significant rainfall because of its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. The area has lush vegetation, images of which dominate Tenango embroidery, distinguishing it from other Otomí styles.
Large Tenango embroidered panel by Cándida Pérez on display at the Museo de Arte Indígena Contemporáneo in Cuernavaca. Danya OC – Wikimedia Commons
Travel in the region is difficult, with roads on steep mountainsides often getting washed out, but the isolation the terrain provided helped protect Otomí heritage over the centuries. Many people here still speak Otomí, and several pre-Hispanic religious beliefs survive.
However, the tradeoff has been grinding poverty.
The Otomí are one of Mexico’s larger indigenous communities, but because of their history, they are scattered in communities in eight states and Mexico City. There are cultural differences among Otomí groups, with Tenango embroidery done only in eastern Mexico.
Tenango is a modified embroidery style, simplified from what had been done here for centuries. According to most histories, drought decimated the subsistence agriculture of the area in the 1960s, and locals needed a new form of income to survive.
The original idea was to make the traditional blouses with pepanado embroidery, a style done with little running stitches, but they are too time-consuming and would drive the price too high. So embroidery floss is instead drawn back and forth over the area to be colored in, with almost all the floss on the visible side.
For large figures, stitches are arranged in stripe-like patterns, using one or multiple colors. Design elements are highly stylized — static flora and fauna inspired by both domestic and wild plants and animals such as chickens, dogs, wild birds, rabbits, turtles, flowers and trees. Rarely do people and houses appear. The figures are not meant to be realistic and are often done in bright colors such as yellows, greens, reds and blues.
Guayabera-style shirt with Tenango embroidery by Tonani Lirio de los Valles in Hidalgo. Tonani Lirio
This, like all embroidery work, is traditionally the purview of women, with mothers teaching daughters, but Tenango’s economic success means that a few men have picked it up as well. Although the style is less involved than pepanado, it is still time-consuming. A good bedspread can take up to six years to make.
Unfortunately, such embroidery does not bring in very much money. The worst off must rely on selling to traveling middlemen who sometimes obtain pieces only by bartering food. Some embroiderers can do better because they bought sewing machines. This allows them to create finished products such as clothing items, napkins and tablecloths, which fetch better prices than embroidery on cloth alone.
Although the designs have not changed much since the 1960s, the range of products it is found on has widened, now including many modern clothing items and even footwear. Traditional and nontraditional products can be found for sale in most parts of Mexico, especially in tourist areas — everywhere from street markets to luxury shops.
Although considered traditional, state and local authorities have attributed Tenango embroidery to a woman named Josefina José Tavera, who lived in the community of San Nicolás near Tenango and died in May. According to her family, she invented it because in 1960 she was a single mother who needed money to care for her children. She drew the animals and plants around her, embroidered them and began selling in Pahuatlán.
Since it was never registered with trademark authorities, it is folk art under Mexican law. Foreign designers such as Carolina Herrera and Hermès have used the designs in some of their product lines, with controversies arising as late as 2019. Such issues with Mexican crafts, especially those done by indigenous groups, prompted the Mexican government to change the law to require those using such designs to identify them as such. However, these laws only apply to Mexico.
There are a few Otomí artisans and businesses that have worked to take advantage of interest in these designs, including on modern clothing and home items. One of these is Tonani Lirio de los Valles.
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The business is in the regional commercial city of Tulancingo, Hidalgo, but the family that runs it is from the Tenango region. They design clothing and home items and work with up to around 100 embroiderers from their home region when business is good. They have a Facebook page and are listed with the prestigious Feria Maestros del Arte in Chapala, Jalisco.
One artisan who does the embroidery style on more traditional objects is Inocencio Pérez Iturbide. His fine work has caught the attention of the prestigious Feria and is included in their online catalogue.
One unusual fusion of local crafts is wall hangings that combine embroidered panels with locally made amate bark paper. Work of this kind is made by artisans such as Leobardo Espíritu Rocha and worth a look.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
In a video message Friday, the president said he was well and continuing to work.
Mexico will receive 6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in February and an additional 12 million in March, President López Obrador said Friday.
“We’re going to have around 6 million vaccine doses in February and without any problem we’re going to have double [that amount] in March, 12 million doses. … I don’t rule out that by the end of March we’ll have vaccinated, even if it’s [just] with one dose, all the senior citizens of our country,” López Obrador said in a video message filmed at the National Palace, where he is currently in isolation as he recovers from Covid-19.
There are about 15 million people over the age of 60 in Mexico, a figure that accounts for about 12% of the population. Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said last week that the government expects to inoculate almost 14.2 million people by the end of March.
The president said that he had spoken with the CEO of Pfizer and that the pharmaceutical company, which is currently upgrading its plant in Belgium, could resume shipments of its vaccine on February 10, five days earlier than previously announced. Mexico has an agreement to purchase a total of 34.4 million doses of the Pfizer shot, and 1.5 million are expected next month.
López Obrador said the government intends to import 870,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India in February in addition to the 77.4 million doses it has already agreed to buy.
Seguimos pendientes de los asuntos públicos y de la pandemia de COVID-19
The president also said that 870,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine will arrive from Russia in February. López Obrador spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday and secured a deal to purchase 24 million doses of the two-shot vaccine. A first shipment is expected to arrive at the end of next week.
López Obrador said that 1.8 million vaccines doses are expected to be delivered in February through the intergovernmental Covax initiative – which aims to ensure rapid and equitable access to vaccines for all countries – adding that doses of China’s CanSino Biologics single-shot vaccine will also arrive.
“I spoke to the Chinese ambassador in Mexico and there is a lot of willingness to help us,” he said.
Immediately after that remark, López Obrador spoke of the 6 million and 12 million doses expected to arrive in Mexico in February and March, respectively.
The president didn’t clearly say whether those figures referred to the total number of vaccines Mexico expects to receive from the different pharmaceutical companies or whether they referred to the number it expects to receive from CanSino, with which the government has an agreement to purchase 35 million doses. Different media outlets have interpreted his remarks in different ways. Mexico News Daily believes the president was referring to the combined total of vaccine doses that is expected to arrive, not the number of Chinese doses.
As for his own health, López Obrador said that he is well and that his doctors have told him that he is passing through the critical stage of his illness. Officials have provided brief updates on the president’s health this week, saying that he is only suffering mild symptoms such as low-grade fever and headache.
“I present myself to you so that there are no rumors or misunderstandings. I’m well although I still have to rest,” said López Obrador, dressed in formal attire, as he walked down a corridor of the National Palace, where he lives.
“… I’ve been working, I’ve been very aware of all the public affairs and paying particular attention to the pandemic,” he said, adding that the government is continuing with the same coronavirus strategy but strengthening it.
“From the beginning it has consisted of [ensuring] that nobody lacks a [hospital] bed and that there is no shortage of doctors.”
“I’m optimistic in all senses, I’m sure that we’re going to overcome this difficult pandemic situation and we’re going to restore our economy and jobs,” López Obrador said.
“It’s a matter of not giving up; as the celebrated baseball player Babe Ruth said: ‘You can’t beat the person who never gives up.’ … We have to have a lot of faith in the future, hope is a very powerful force. Besides we have a mission ahead of us, we have to transform the country, we have to put an end to the plague of corruption. That’s the worst of the pandemics – corruption is worse than malaria, and we’re making progress.”
Loss in tourism revenue could amount to US $1 billion
The federal government has warned that Canada’s three-month suspension of flights to Mexico could cause a “profound economic crisis” in North America.
Citing the risk posed to Canada by new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday that flights to Mexico and Caribbean countries would be suspended until April 30 starting Sunday. He also said that travelers entering Canada would be required to go into quarantine in hotels at their own expense for up to three days until they receive a negative Covid-19 test result.
It is unclear when the mandatory hotel quarantine requirement will start. The Canadian government said in a statement that “as soon as possible in the coming weeks, all air travelers arriving in Canada, with very limited exceptions, must reserve a room in a government of Canada-approved hotel for three nights at their own cost,” adding that “more details will be available in the coming days.”
With regard to the temporary halt on flights, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the federal government hoped that the suspension could be lifted “as soon as possible in order to prevent a profound economic crisis in the North American region.”
Canada is the second most important source country for travelers to Mexico after the United States, although the number of visitors declined 56% to just under 2.1 million in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Six airlines will be directly affected by the suspension of flights, the newspaper Reforma reported, among which is Mexico’s flag carrier, Aeroméxico.
The airline announced that it would suspend flights from Mexico to Canada from the second week of February until April 30. Aeroméxico said in a statement that its flights to Toronto would be suspended on February 8 and its services to Montreal and Vancouver on February 10.
Trudeau said Canadian airlines would make arrangements with customers already in Mexico and Caribbean destinations to organize their return flights.
The news agency AFP reported that Canada’s new travel rules, among which is also a requirement for international passengers to undergo PCR Covid-19 testing upon arrival at Canadian airports, were cause for concern among some travelers at Mexico City airport on Friday.
“I understand that they want to prevent more people being infected … but at the same time I’m a little bit annoyed because I already paid for a test [which is required before boarding a flight to Canada] and doing it again is uncomfortable,” said Ludmila Guerra, a 40-year-old Salvadoran resident of Canada.
A 30-year-old engineer only identified as Héctor went to the airport to try to get on an earlier flight to ensure that he could get to Canada – and avoid hotel quarantine.
Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and Cancún could be hit hardest by the decline in Canadian visitor numbers.
The suspension of flights is a heavy blow for the Mexican tourism sector, which had its most difficult year in living memory in 2020. (The Mexican economy slumped by 8.5% in 2020 – the worst contraction in almost 90 years – and tourism was one of the hardest hit sectors.)
Its announcement came just three days after a rule requiring travelers to the United States to present a negative Covid-19 test result took effect. The U.S. testing requirement and a new quarantine directive are expected to hurt Mexico’s tourism industry. The new Canadian restrictions will only exacerbate the pain.
The National Tourism Business Council (CNET) said that 2021 could end up being a much worse year for tourism than 2020.
The suspension of flights from Canada coupled with the Mexican government’s failure to launch a campaign that highlights what Mexico’s tourists destinations are doing to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection will result in the Easter vacation period being lost, CNET said.
Anáhuac University’s Center of Research and Tourism Competitiveness said that visitor numbers from Canada could decline by 95% in the first four months of the year and that the tourism sector will miss out on revenue of more than US $1 billion.
Cancún, Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos are the most popular airports with Canadian visitors and therefore those destinations will be hurt the most by the three-month suspension of flights.
The Canadian and U.S. travel testing and quarantine requirements are also likely to have a negative impact on the summer vacation period, although the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines has the potential to change the pandemic situation considerably by the middle of the year.
Mexico, Canada and the United States have all begun administering vaccines but the percentage of the population that has received a shot remains very low in all three countries.
Just over 662,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had been administered to health workers in Mexico as of Friday night but the government’s vaccination program hasn’t yet reached seniors or any other sector of the population.
For the first time since September, no state in Mexico will be green on the coronavirus stoplight map next week after health authorities announced that Campeche would lose its low risk status on Monday.
Health Ministry official Ricardo Cortés said the state, low risk green since late September, would switch to yellow light medium risk on Monday, joining Chiapas – which was green until two weeks ago – as the only two states in the country with that designation.
The Yucatán Peninsula state currently has 125 active cases, according to federal data, and 5% of both general care hospital beds and beds with ventilators are currently occupied by coronavirus patients.
Cortés said that Campeche lost its green light status by just “one or two points,” adding that authorities in the state are working to ensure the lowest levels of risk are maintained. “The public must support the state’s health team in order to go back to green,” he said.
The Health Ministry uses 10 different indicators to determine the stoplight color allocated to each state including the Covid-19 effective reproduction rate (how many people each infected person infects), the weekly positivity rate (the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive) and hospital occupancy levels.
Thirteen of Mexico’s 32 states will be maximum risk red as of Monday and 17 will be high risk orange.
The red states for the next two weeks will be Mexico City, México state, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Hidalgo, Morelos, San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Guerrero, Nayarit and Colima.
The first 12 states are already red – the maximum risk level in San Luis Potosí, Puebla, Guerrero and Nayarit was confirmed by the Health Ministry after state authorities decreed the switch to red this week – while Colima will regress to that color from yellow.
The 17 high risk orange states as of Monday will be Aguascalientes, Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora, Durango, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Oaxaca, Michoacán, Veracruz, Yucatán, Tlaxcala, Coahuila and Chihuahua.
The first 14 states are already orange and will remain that color for the next two weeks. Tlaxcala and Coahuila will switch to orange from red on Monday while Chihuahua will regress to orange from medium risk yellow.
Each stoplight color is accompanied by recommended restrictions to slow the spread of the virus but it is ultimately up to state governments to decide on their own restrictions.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
The updated stoplight map reflects the difficult coronavirus situation Mexico is facing almost a year after the first cases of the virus were detected. The accumulated case tally rose to 1.84 million on Friday with 16,374 new cases reported while the official Covid-19 death toll increased to 156,579 with 1,434 additional fatalities registered.
The greater metropolitan area of Mexico City, where population density is higher than anywhere else in the country, remains the area of most concern. The capital and neighboring México state have a combined accumulated case tally of just over 664,000, meaning that more than one in three cases identified in Mexico since the start of the pandemic were detected in those two entities.
Their combined Covid-19 death toll is above 46,000, a figure that accounts for about 30% of all Covid-19 deaths in Mexico.
There are currently just under 10,000 coronavirus patients in hospitals in the Valley of México metropolitan area, which includes the 16 boroughs of Mexico City and many México state municipalities, but hospitalizations have decreased slightly during the past week. Hospital occupancy for general care beds is 89% in Mexico City and 84% in México state, according to federal data, while the rate for beds with ventilators is 80% and 76%, respectively.
Both states have been red on the stoplight map since December 19 but have slightly eased restrictions this month, allowing restaurants to reopen to in-house diners on January 18 provided they have outdoor space to seat them.
Mexico City official Eduardo Clark said Friday that nonessential businesses can reopen on Monday but must attend to their customers outside the commercial establishment in the “fresh air.”
Enclosed shopping centers and department stores in the capital will not be permitted to reopen until February 8.
In México state, outdoor recreational activities and sports will be permitted as of Monday and restaurants, department stores and shopping centers can reopen, Governor Alfredo del Mazo said Friday.
Restaurants will be permitted to operate Monday to Friday at 30% capacity in indoor areas and 40% for alfresco dining. They must close at 8:00 p.m. and are limited to takeout and delivery service on weekends.
“We’re allowing the opening of some activities due to the need to support families’ finances,” del Mazo said.
“It’s about finding a scheme that allows the partial operation of businesses in order to help families’ finances and at the same time continue looking after everyone’s health. It’s the responsibility of everyone to avoid crowds and follow the health measures,” he said.
In 2020, these bills with jailed drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera’s initials appeared in Culiacán, evidence of the cartel's influence on Mexico’s economy.
The term “trickle-down economics” was coined by Will Rodgers in the early 1930s. His exact quote was as follows:
“The money was all appropriated for the top in hopes it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that the money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom, and the people at the top will have it before night anyhow. But it will have passed through the poor fellow’s hand.”
He was a humorist making a joke. Yes, a joke.
The pseudoeconomic philosophy behind this joke refers to the proposition that taxes on businesses and the wealthy should be reduced as a means to stimulate investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term. The theory that businesses will use their tax savings to reinvest in such a way that the average person benefits economically is pure political bunkum. Publicly traded companies will use their tax savings to buy back shares of their own stock, and the wealthy will simply hoard it.
When wealthy people receive a tax break, they rarely spend it in such a way to benefit society in general; they invest it to increase their personal wealth. This amassing of money at the top of the economic food chain will generate no significant benefit to the average citizen.
However, when the average person receives a windfall, they spend it: they pay bills, buy food, pay for home maintenance or auto repairs or any of the myriad ways money trickles through our fingers on a daily basis. Savings maybe, but not so much. As individuals, our spending habits drive the economic engine which powers a modern economy.
However, here in the land of tacos and tequila, trickle-down economics is not only alive and well, it actually works. There are many forms whereby pesos percolate through this deeply stratified society from the very top and eventually down to the impoverished folks who glean a living at the local landfill.
First, let’s take look at the largest fountain of trickle-down funds that suffuses all regions of México: the drug trade.
We are all aware that the various drug cartels in Mexico generate huge amounts of cash. The estimated monetary flow from this illicit enterprise ranges between US $30 billion and $60 billion per year, depending on the information source, and remittances (money sent to Mexico from abroad) are around $30 billion annually. In light of these figures, if the clandestine cash of the drug trade were to evaporate today, the Mexican economy would crash tomorrow.
The average drug lord does not buy stocks or bonds or options or warrants or any type of paper equities. He buys boats, cars, jewelry, houses, airplanes, restaurants and hotels as well as politicians, judges, various policemen and members of the military — along with numerous “street” people.
In Charles Bowden’s book Down by The River, he writes that according to his research, the Juárez Cartel spent about $40 million every month in the late ’90s for bribes, wages and protection (as well as a significant amount of ammunition). That monthly payroll was spread between 10,000 and 12,000 people and made the cartel the largest employer in that quadrant of Mexico. With at least five active cartels operating around Mexico, all spending money in a similar fashion, a significant benefit is trickled down to the average person. I have spent time in villages in the mountains of Sinaloa, and the prosperity is obvious.
Trickle-down economics at the landfill.
Most of the people in this illicit business come from impoverished backgrounds, where spending exuberantly and excessively is the ultimate expression of their success. Therefore, most narco cash is spent in such a way that the pesos are circulated throughout the Mexican economy.
In Culiacán, the Sinaloa Cartel’s cultural center, the narco trickle-down is openly expressed with marked currency. Several months ago, 200-peso notes with the stamped message “De su amigo JGL” started to show up throughout the city. It basically says, “From your friend Joaquín Guzmán Loera,” i.e. the infamous drug lord known as “El Chapo,” who even from a prison in the United States trickles down pesos to the people of Sinaloa.
However, average Mexicans also have many ways to contribute to the trickle-down effect as well. A major one is via trash.
If you have spent time in Mexico, I am sure you have seen beer cans flying out the windows of a vehicle. Most of the gringos who witness this act of giving are appalled by what they think is a wanton disregard for our environment and not a trickle-down. However, at 18 pesos per kilo, those aluminum cans will be gathered by someone who is grateful for each and every one. (Helpful gringo info: it is best to separate aluminum from your household basura; this allows the scroungers to easily access what they are seeking without digging through the trash barrel and scattering its contents onto the street.)
When the trash is picked up, even the basureros (garbagemen) have personal bags with them to collect anything of value. By the time the trash truck empties its load at the landfill, even though very few things of any value are left, there are desperately poor people who eviscerate the bags and pick through the contents.
The process of recycling — another form of trickle-down — has been finely tuned throughout Mexico for many generations. North of the border, recycled items are handled by recycling companies, not by impoverished individuals who live a hand-to-mouth existence.
The typical small tire repair shops in Mexico are a prime example of the Mexican ingenuity employed in recycling. These shops will recondition and reuse tires that would warrant jail time in the U.S. or Canada. In a country where a single new tire can cost 2,000 pesos and 30% of the working population makes less than 2,000 pesos per month, any tire which can hold air has an immediate value.
Mexico is a country where many benefit from the kindness of others, and the less fortunate position themselves to maximize that benefit. In the cities, every busy intersection has its share of people looking for a handout. Some will perform, some display a sign with a brief outline of a personal horror story and the severely handicapped just hold out a hand.
In rural areas, vendors will set up at the topes (speed bumps), where motorists are forced to slow to a crawl. In these situations, it is the people without automobiles soliciting a pittance from the people wealthy enough to own an automobile. Even when a person withdraws pesos from an ATM, the machine will ask if you wish to donate to a children’s fund.
Now, if the government would just put a value on anything plastic — bags, cups, packaging, etc. — the landscape would be trash-free, and the impoverished would benefit.
The writer describes himself as a very middle-aged man who lives full-time in Mazatlán with a captured tourist woman and the ghost of a half-wild dog. He can be reached at [email protected].
