The company already has a presence in Mexico through clinics located in Superama stores.
Canadian healthcare provider Jack Nathan Health announced Friday that its Mexican subsidiary has launched a nationwide telemedicine service.
The company’s CEO and co-founder said in a press release that the new telemedicine service will expand access to primary health care in Mexico.
“It is an affordable way for everyday patients to maintain accurate medical monitoring, manage chronic diseases, and proactively identify health risk factors,” said George Barakat.
“The launch of our telemedicine portal in Mexico is a major technology step forward for Jack Nathan’s Circle of Health Care vision.”
Online appointments, which cost 50 pesos, can be made via the company’s website. As of Friday afternoon, appointments were available with six doctors.
Jack Nathan México told Mexico News Daily that one of the doctors, Dr. Luis Hernando Escamilla Ortiz, offers consultations in English.
Payment is required at the time of making an appointment. The 50-peso fee can be paid by PayPal or bank card. Patients who wish to pay by card can request a payment link by contacting Jack Nathan México on WhatsApp at 55 8069 5210.
The company’s Mexico manager said the expansion into telemedicine will positively impact the way patients in Mexico interact with their doctors.
“The opportunity to see and interact with a physician from the comfort of your home or office is very new for Mexico and will open up much needed access to physicians nationally, while lowering costs to patients,” Laura Camacho said.
“This will connect patients to physicians like never before, and ultimately lead to better health outcomes. The people of Mexico needed a telemedicine partner with high-quality virtual physicians.”
The company entered the Mexican market in 2017 and now offers in-person healthcare services at six clinics in Superama supermarkets. All are located in Mexico City.
However, Jack Nathan said Friday that it is planning an “extensive nationwide rollout” of its clinics.
The state has also suspended Day of the Dead celebrations.
The Oaxaca Congress has approved a law that stipulates that mayors will be removed from office if their governments don’t enforce statewide coronavirus rules.
The new law, which took effect Thursday, complements an existing law that establishes that municipal officials who don’t comply with coronavirus restrictions can be fined or even jailed.
It says that while the coronavirus is deemed a threat, all public activities must be suspended. They include patron saint festivals, street markets and all public Day of the Dead activities.
The law also says that the capacity of restaurants and hotels must be restricted and that bars, cantinas and nightclubs must remain closed.
If municipal governments don’t enforce the rules, mayors and municipal councilors are subject to immediate dismissal.
Oaxaca is the first state in the country to pass such a law.
The southern state has recorded 19,458 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to official data, and 1,562 Covid-related deaths.
It has the 18th highest case tally among Mexico’s 32 states and the 20th highest death toll.
Oaxaca is one of seven states where the risk of coronavirus infection according to the federal government’s stoplight system increased to orange light “high” this week from yellow light “medium.”
Meanwhile, Mexico’s official Covid-19 case tally and death toll continue to increase steadily 7 1/2 months after the disease was first detected here.
The Health Ministry reported 5,514 new cases on Thursday, increasing the accumulated tally to 834,910, and 387 additional fatalities, lifting the death toll to 85,285.
The accumulated numbers for both cases and deaths are widely believed to be significant undercounts because Mexico’s testing rate is very low compared to many other countries.
The Baja California Sur (BCS) Health Safety Council voted to cancel Halloween and Day of the Dead celebrations throughout the state this year due to the coronavirus.
Cemeteries across the state will also be closed over the Day of the Dead holiday, from October 30 through November 3.
“This decision is part of the strategy implemented to contain Covid-19 infections. Remember that we have not overcome the pandemic,” Governor Carlos Mendoza said.
BCS is at the yellow level on the coronavirus risk stoplight and citizens are urged to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing.
As of Thursday, BCS had recorded 11,390 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 563 deaths.
No school for 7,000
In Los Cabos, 7,000 families do not have the necessary tools for their children to be able to participate in distance education. They are families that live without a legal supply of electricity, much less a television, computer, tablet or smartphone, said Adriana López Monje, regional president of the Los Cabos Parents’ Association.
Televised education leaves much to be desired, Diario El Independiente reported.
“It is an obsolete way of teaching. We do not think the content or presenters are good,” López said. “Many parents do not even know how to read or write, they do not know if their children are doing their homework well or badly.
There are also complaints from parents about teachers who only ask [students] to watch TV and do not give homework or assignments.
“Of course, there is also the recognition of teachers who are very concerned about the students, who know that they do not have access to a computer or the internet and leave booklets for parents to go through and do the activities,” she says.
Fish Tales
The Bisbee’s Los Cabos Offshore tournament kicked off Thursday with a record 128 teams participating, up from 114 last year. The event, known as the “Little Bisbee’s,” concludes October 18 and is in full compliance with coronavirus protocols.
Hugo Pino’s 268-kilogram black marlin.
The weigh station has been moved from in front of the Puerto Paraiso shopping mall to the cruise ship dock and only one angler is allowed to approach the scales with his catch. Typically, crowds of hundreds gather to see the enormous black and blue marlin get weighed. To qualify, marlin must weigh in excess of 300 pounds. Underweight fish result in a deduction of points.
The teams are competing for a purse of US $1.44 million, up from last year’s US $1.16 million.
The Bisbee’s Black & Blue tournament, the world’s richest fishing tournament, starts October 20.
Earlier this week, fisherman Hugo Pino aboard the Stella June pulled in a black marlin weighing a whopping 268 kilos during the Los Cabos Billfish Tournament. The monster fish was not enough to win the tournament, however, which is based on points.
Greg DiStefano of the El Suertudo caught a 179-kilo black marlin and a 158-kilo blue marlin which propelled his team into first place. The El Suertudo team took home a US $344,700 check.
Busted
A man in La Paz who allegedly stole a briefcase full of medical supplies from the Calafia volunteer paramedics last Saturday was arrested this week. The medical supplies were stolen out of Calafia’s ambulance while it was parked in the Camino Real neighborhood of the state capital.
The man was released from jail to await trial but is required to sign in with authorities weekly and is ordered to stay away from Calafia’s property.
Tourism recovering in Los Cabos as high season looms
With the beginning of high season just around the corner, tourism officials expect to see 191,000 tourists travel to San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas this December, a number representing about 70% of the number of visitors to Los Cabos in December of 2019.
Last December 165,000 international and 80,000 national tourists traveled to the resort destination. This year officials expect 126,000 foreign tourists and 65,000 Mexican visitors.
That number could grow even higher as there are now four airlines offering direct flights from New York to Los Cabos, adding 4,500 new seats.
The number of visitors who travel to Los Cabos in private planes is also enjoying an unprecedented uptick, with 70% more tourists arriving in private planes in September than during the same month in 2019, Cabo Mil Noticias reports.
The good kind of excess baggage
Not all tourists get to see what life is like for some of Los Cabos’ poorest residents, but many of those who do find ways to help people who are struggling economically.
Such is the case of Bryan Shaul from Indianapolis, Indiana, who has been coming to Cabo San Lucas for the past 10 years. Last October, Shaul traveled to Cabo with 50 suitcases in tow containing items to aid children of low-income families who are served by the non-profit Solmar Foundation.
This year he outdid himself, arriving in Los Cabos with 62 suitcases full of new or gently used clothes, shoes, hygiene items and toys to help local families, Shaul told Mexico News Daily.
As for how he got 62 suitcases on one airplane, “I always have a large group traveling with me and many other friends that are always [in Los Cabos] this time of year, so I ask them to bring a suitcase I fill, and we get donations to cover the luggage fees since sadly the airlines won’t waive,” he said.
Bryan Shaul and his ‘excess baggage.’
Customs was also a breeze for the travelers bearing gifts. “I have one friend that works for a national soccer association back home, and [customs] got him with a bunch of soccer balls, jerseys and shorts that they made him pay US $50 taxes [on], but the rest got through OK,” Shaul says.
Seen
Australian actress Rebel Wilson of the Pitch Perfect series of films and her boyfriend Jacob Busch posted a number of photos to social media from their Los Cabos vacation this week, including shots of them enjoying a beach barbecue and churros before watching Jurassic Park together.
Legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather also touched down in Cabo, posting a photo of himself staring out to sea on his Instagram account where he has 23.8 million followers.
Mayweather travels to Los Cabos often and does not do so in a low-key fashion. The retired champion arrives at the Los Cabos airport in a Gulfstream G650 jet emblazoned with “MAYWEATHER” in large, black letters across the body and “a “50-0” on the wings, a reference to Mayweather’s boxing record.
This mirador offers an excellent bird's-eye view of Huilotán Ecopark.
Western Mexico is an extraordinary place for people who love nature and the great outdoors. It just so happens that all five of Mexico’s ecosystems converge in this area.
This means that from Guadalajara you only have to drive a few hours in any direction to visit a pine forest, a lake, a mountain, a deep canyon, a sandy ocean beach or a still smoldering volcano. And in less than a day you can surely reach a desert, a hot spring or a jungle.
With so much biodiversity and geodiversity all around you, the idea of camping overnight naturally occurs, even to people who have never pitched a tent in their lives: “I want to gaze in awe at a star-studded sky and fall asleep to the lullaby of crickets and frogs.”
At that moment, of course, comes the question: is it safe?
That’s when people come to someone like me.
For a total change, camp inside surreal Parangueo Crater, Guanajuato.
“John, you’ve been living in western Mexico for 35 years and you’ve camped everywhere from bat caves to active volcanoes, so … is it safe?”
To this I can honestly reply that during 67 years of camping all around the globe, I’ve been “attacked” only twice, and neither of those incidents was in Mexico. The first experience took place in Haiti when a group of patriotic farmers, armed with rifles and pitchforks, “captured” some U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer friends and me at the entrance to a shelter cave out in the bush where we’d spent the night, thinking they had just thwarted the invasion of Haiti by Fidel Castro and his cohorts iIn those days I had a bigger beard).
Attack No. 2 took place in southwest Saudi Arabia, very close to the border of Yemen. I would have sworn that Saudi Arabia was the safest place in the world for camping in the desert but, alas, our tent was spotted by a group of long-bearded religious zealots who surprised my wife and me in the middle of the night shouting, “Show us your marriage certificate!”
Well, nowhere else in the world, I think, would a camping couple just happen to have their marriage certificate on hand — except in Saudi Arabia, of course.
Oh, how disappointed were our accusers: no fornicators to punish that night!
In these cases it was ignorance and mistaken identity rather than willful malice that motivated our attackers. Although such scenarios are within the realm of possibility in Mexico, I personally have never been attacked while camping in this country nor do I have a single acquaintance who’s had such a problem, including many who camp “out in the wild,” as I do.
This campsite in Jalisco’s Primavera Forest offers restrooms, water and police surveillance.
That said, there are so many protected places to pitch your tent, such as parks, camping grounds and private property, that safety ceases to be a problem. Let me mention just a few:
Parque Ecologico Huilotán, Jalisco
Only a 45-minute drive north of Guadalajara, this jungle park is filled with mango trees and some of the biggest fig trees I have ever seen. In their shade are large swimming pools of constantly running room-temperature spring water so pure you can drink it.
From your tent you can hike to a 100-meter-tall waterfall and then go back for a dinner of the tastiest pescado dorado (fried tilapia) imaginable — from Huilotán’s own fish farm.
Sierra de Quila Nature Reserve, Jalisco
Looking for something cooler? Pitch your tent at La Ciénega campground in the middle of a truly beautiful forest at altitude 2,146 meters, with 11 waterfalls where you can take a chilly shower … after your return, of course, from hiking to rocky Huehuentón Peak, 2,565 meters high.
The view from El Manto’s spacious campground.
El Manto Waterpark, Nayarit
Perhaps you’d rather camp near a beautiful waterfall and a gorgeously sculpted river of pure, clear, room temperature spring water.
Fortunately, El Manto not only offers swimming in an attractive, natural setting, but also has cabins to rent and a huge, flat meadow where you can camp next to roofed picnic tables.
Laguna La María, Colima
If you have a yen for a great view, you might want to camp at La María Crater Lake, where you can go boating, swimming or hiking by day and then enjoy a spectacular natural fireworks show at night … if you are lucky.
La María is located just 10 kilometers from Mexico’s restless, flamboyant Volcán de Fuego, the Fire Volcano, and when it puts on a show, you will never forget it!
A short walk at night from La María Lake offers a great view of the Fire Volcano.
Paricutín Volcano, Angahuan, Michoacán
What’s that? You don’t want to look on a live volcano from afar? You’d rather camp right next to one, where you can actually taste the volcanic ash floating in the breeze? Well, why not camp at world-famous Paricutín Volcano, which popped up out of nowhere in the middle of a farmer’s cornfield back in 1943?
Isla Isabel, Pacific Ocean
All right, if none of the above will satisfy your thirst for adventure, how about camping on Mexico’s answer to the Galapagos Islands, located 150 kilometers northwest of Puerto Vallarta? You’ll be in the company of whales, dolphins and blue-footed boobies, and it’s safe … unless, of course, your boat sinks.
When it comes to camping in Mexico, I think the fly in the ointment is noise. We foreigners have our own definitions of “common sense” and “normal behavior” and can easily fool ourselves into believing the whole world sees (or should see) these things in exactly the same light.
It just isn’t so. When I was a child, I was told to whisper late at night “so you won’t wake up your little brother.”
Campers are welcome at Los Chorros de Tala, Jalisco.
That was my family’s custom, but here in Mexico I see a different system in operation: “little brother” has had enough years of sleeping-under-duress training to peacefully slumber through a hurricane (or even worse, a fiesta) and you couldn’t wake him up if you tried.
Whispering at night may be a concept many Mexicans have simply never thought about. So, if you express righteous anger at people who wake you up at a campsite, you are making the wrong move. Imagine instead that those noisy people simply aren’t aware they’re bothering anyone, and take it from there.
Having said all this, I would never go camping without a pair of Howard Leight Max earplugs. These I chose after an extensive study of earplugs and I find they work well if you first wet them and then insert them as instructed, while pulling on your earlobe. With Maxes in place, you too will be able to sleep through a fiesta.
Well, maybe not, if you happen to be lying on hard, cold ground. In my opinion, most adults and kids who say they don’t like camping actually don’t like being deprived of sleep.
Neither do I! That’s why I advise you to invest in a good sleeping pad. “Good” means it should be, as I see it, just as comfortable as your bed, if not more so. Check out the self-inflating pads made by Therm-a-Rest or their competitors. Buy the size and style you like best plus a strip of heavy canvas to put under it. Thorns abound in Mexico! Do this and you may gain a whole new outlook on camping.
There is, of course, much more to be said about camping equipment, but others have said it far better than I. One good source of info on gear, techniques and an appreciation of the great outdoors is Mexico’s Bakpak Magazine, which has been published since 2005 and is distributed free of charge.
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All the old editions can be perused online at their website, but note that everything is in Spanish. If you only read English, check out The Hiking Life, a gold mine of information by my friend Cam Honan, a world-renowned long-distance hiker — and expert in light-weight camping — who has lived in Mexico for many years.
With the proper gear and the proper attitude, you can look forward to many delightful nights under starry skies, serenaded by crickets, frogs, owls and whippoorwills. Just don’t forget that Therm-a-Rest!
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Former defense minister Cienfuegos and Peña Nieto.
Mexico’s former defense minister, arrested Thursday at Los Angeles airport on a warrant from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, faces four drug-related charges and will appear in court on Friday afternoon.
Unsealed Friday, a 2019 indictment of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of New York accuses General Salvador Cienfuegos, army chief during the 2012-2018 government of former president Enrique Peña Nieto, of conspiring to manufacture and distribute drugs including heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana and conspiring to launder narcotics proceeds.
One count reads that between late 2015 and early 2017 Cienfuegos, “also known as ‘El Padrino'” (the Godfather) and others conspired to manufacture and distribute one or more controlled substances, intending that they would be unlawfully imported into the United States.
In another court filing, U.S. prosecutors said that in exchange for bribe payments the former army chief permitted the Nayarit-based H-2 Cartel – “a cartel that routinely engaged in wholesale violence, including torture and murder – to operate with impunity in Mexico.”
Counts two and three also refer to drug conspiracy charges while count four refers to money laundering, accusing Cienfuegos, “together with others,” of conspiring to conduct financial transactions involving the proceeds of drug trafficking.
Cienfuegos’ arrest described as ‘heavy blow’ to the image of the army.
The indictment also says the United States government will seek forfeiture of any property Cienfuegos obtained directly or indirectly as a result of his alleged offenses.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Twitter Friday morning that he had been informed that Cienfuegos will appear in court at 4:30 p.m. CT on Friday. He said the former defense minister’s lawyer was on his way to the United States and that Cienfuegos was expected to be transferred to New York after his hearing.
César Gutiérrez Priego, a lawyer who specializes in military matters, said the arrest of Cienfuegos, the first top Mexican military official to be arrested in the United States, is a “very heavy blow” to the image of the army and the morale of military personnel.
“This is an investigation that should have been carried out years ago,” he added.
Security specialist Ricardo Márquez Blas said that the arrest will damage the reputation of the army, which he described as one of the country’s most prestigious and respected institutions.
León Krauze, a columnist for the newspaper El Universal, said the arrest will have “profound implications” for the Mexican army, the former and current governments and the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States.
A senator for the ruling Morena party questioned why Cienfuegos and former security minister Genaro García Luna have been arrested but the presidents they served under – Peña Nieto and Felipe Calderón, respectively – have not.
“Will they only be arrested if they go to the United States?” Felix Salgado Macedonio asked in a Twitter post.
President López Obrador, who has used the detention of the former security minister as evidence for his frequent claims that Calderón’s government and other past administrations were corrupt, pounced on the news of Cienfuego’s arrest, saying that it created an “unprecedented situation.”
“This is an unequivocal example of the rotting of the system, of how public administration – the function of the government – was degraded in the country during the neoliberal period,” he said.
Despite that claim, López Obrador said that Cienfuegos must be afforded the presumption of innocence. He said that there are no pending charges against the former defense minister in Mexico.
News of Cienfuegos’ arrest shows ‘the rot during the neoliberal period,’ said President López Obrador.
The president also said there will be a “cleansing” of the army to remove any officials who might have colluded with Cienfuegos.
“As in the case of García Luna, all those who turn out to be involved in this case, that are [currently] in the National Defense [Ministry] of the government, will be suspended and removed,” he said, adding that anyone suspected of wrongdoing will be referred to the relevant authorities.
“We’re not going to cover up for anyone.”
López Obrador also expressed confidence in the current army and navy chiefs although both security forces are accused of human rights abuses during his administration.
The virus that has caused over a million deaths worldwide will be prominent at Halloween this year — as a costume.
Merchants at Mexico City’s Sonora Market are selling coronavirus costumes for 250 pesos (US $12.00), and they have proved popular.
The costumes are a phosphorescent green, include a spiky mask with a fierce, toothy grin and are wrapped in yellow hazard tape. The costume is already a bestseller, the newspaper El Universal reported, surpassing zombies, skeletal Catrinas and the Joker in its appeal.
Jovana Méndez, who works at the market’s Zombie Town costume shop, says that customers young and old have responded well to the costume.
“Knowing that we Mexicans like to be amusing, we came up with the cap, the mask and the shirt,” she said. “We knew this was going to explode. Covid-19 has already infected Mexico City and now it is going through the Sonora Market,” she said laughing.
Coronavirus costume sales are helping merchants such as Zeus Dante, who also sells a Covid-19 mask, rebound from the economic crisis the pandemic has provoked.
“Sales have not been very good, but with the mask, they have recovered a bit,” he said.
In 2014, online retailers peddled a “Sexy Ebola Nurse” costume, replete with a white mini-dress, goggles, face shield and latex gloves which was loudly panned on the internet for being insensitive to victims of the virus.
Earlier this month Amazon removed coronavirus Halloween masks marketed on its site by an independent seller after public outcry.
The masks, made in China, resembled the virus under a microscope with the addition of googly eyes and ragged teeth.
“These masks show a terrible lapse of judgment by the manufacturers and sellers, and I hope they will be removed from sale quickly,” said Rachel Power of a British parents’ organization. “I’ve no doubt the great majority of people will find them hugely distasteful, and I can’t imagine that many people would wish to wear one.”
The masks continue to be available on Amazon from other sellers, however.
Other coronavirus-inspired costumes include “Sexy Hand Sanitizer,” “Sexy Banana Bread” modeled after one of the pandemic’s most common baked goods, and toilet paper rolls, either empty or full.
Marines illegally detained, physically abused and murdered four people doing farm work in Puebla last year, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said Thursday.
The CNDH said in a statement that it was told by the mother of one of the victims that her son was harvesting hay with three other people on a property in Tlahuapan on February 28 when marines traveling in three vehicles arrested them on the grounds that they were stealing fuel from a nearby Pemex pipeline.
The woman said local residents witnessed the marines undress the four victims and beat them while they were forced to lie on the ground.
The CNDH said that when the marines realized they were being watched they put their victims into the navy vehicles and left the property.
The next day the bodies of the four victims were found on a hill on Puebla’s northeastern border with the state of Tlaxcala.
The CNDH said it had confirmed that the marines detained the four people arbitrarily and illegally, and that they failed to complete the necessary paperwork detailing the arrest.
It said that navy personnel took the victims to a forested area near the Puebla-Tlaxcala border where they subjected them to more abuse before killing them.
The rights commission said it had informed Navy chief José Rafael Ojeda Durán of the “serious human rights violations” committed by the marines. It also said it had submitted a recommendation to the navy advising it to add the four victims’ names to the National Registry of Victims, to ensure compensation is paid to their families and to provide them psychological treatment.
In addition, the CNDH instructed the navy to cooperate with formal investigations into the murders and recommended that it provide human rights training to its personnel and equip them with body cameras.
The navy said Thursday it would comply with the commission’s recommendations. It has previously said that the marines involved in the alleged crimes were made available to prosecutors.
The military has been accused of human rights abuses including extrajudicial killings in the past but the navy is generally considered one of Mexico’s most trustworthy and cleanest institutions.
Teacher college students hijacked 20 buses in Michoacán Thursday on the Siglo XXI highway in order to participate in a protest.
The hijackers forced passengers to disembark and told bus drivers to take them to Tiripetío and the indigenous community of Caltzotzin, where they demanded the government guarantee recent graduates 2,000 teaching positions in exchange for the return of the buses and drivers.
Teachers and students have been blockading the railways in Tiripetío and Caltzotzin for the past month, demanding jobs and the payment of bonuses and scholarships, at times clashing with authorities.
Blockades have interrupted the transport of goods to and from the center of the country, which is causing economic losses estimated at 50 million pesos (US $2.27 million) per day.
Michoacán Industry Association president Carlos Alberto Enríquez Barajas says that regardless of whether the teachers’ demands are legitimate, “this can no longer be the way to function in Michoacán.”
In April, at least two students from the Tiripetío Rural Normal School were wounded after police opened fire on a bus they had stolen to attend a protest.
Thus far, police have taken no action against those who commandeered the buses yesterday. Bus owners are expected to report the thefts to the state prosecutor’s office, the newspaper Milenio reported.
The owner of a canine training center in Hermosillo, Sonora, is undertaking a new project born out of the current times: he’s training dogs to detect the coronavirus.
While his business was closed for four months by the coronavirus pandemic, Sergio Castilla became interested in efforts in other parts of the world to train dogs to detect Covid-19 and decided he would attempt to do the same in the Sonora capital.
The first person he told about his idea was Juan Manuel Mancilla Tapia, an epilepsy sufferer with whom he had worked to train Leia, a golden retriever, as a seizure alert dog.
Castilla also recruited his friend Victoria Lozano and together the three dog lovers began OBI Caninos Contra el Covid (OBI Dogs Against Covid), the first project in Mexico to train dogs to sniff out the coronavirus.
The name of the project comes from Mancilla’s former seizure alert dog, Obi, who died at the start of the year.
Five dogs are currently in their third and final stage of training: Leia, the golden retriever already trained as a seizure alert dog; Sam, a Belgian shepherd; and Mike, Ringa and Harry, three German shepherds.
Castilla told the newspaper Milenio that the dogs are learning to detect people with the coronavirus by learning to recognize the smell of the virus’s volatile organic compounds, which can be found in an infected person’s sweat, saliva and urine even before they develop symptoms.
He explained that the first stage of training involves introducing a toy to a dog and allowing the animal to play with it so that over time he develops a fondness for and attachment to it. Once that is achieved, a part of the toy is cut off and placed in a receptacle along with a sample of sweat collected from a person who has tested positive for Covid-19 at a state-run laboratory in Sonora, Castilla said.
The dog is allowed to smell the sample along with the toy part and as a result associates the latter with the former. Then the formal training process begins.
“It’s a matter of saying to the dog, ‘Do you want your toy? Look for the smell,’” Castilla said, adding that the dog subsequently becomes addicted to the odor “because he wants to play.”
Once a dog has learned to differentiate between the smell of the toy part and the smell of the sweat sample, the former is removed from the receptacle, he said. When a dog subsequently locates the sweat sample on its own, he is rewarded with his toy, Castilla said.
Trainer Sergio Castilla and one of the dogs learning to detect Covid-19.
He stressed that the dogs are not directly exposed to the sweat samples and are not placed at any risk, even though there is no evidence that they can contract the coronavirus.
The final part of the training process involves setting up several receptacles that contain human sweat samples. However, only one of them has a sample from a Covid-positive person. Once a dog can immediately locate the Covid-positive sample among the various sweat samples, he or she is considered to be successfully trained.
Castilla said that in the real world, a trained dog will alert its master to a case of Covid-19 through his behavior.
“If you have a virus, … the dog will change his behavior, he’ll feel a little bit worried and tense because he doesn’t know how to explain to you that there is something inside you that’s giving you a different smell,” he said.
Castilla said that during the three-month-long training process, he and his colleagues have received guidance and assistance from researchers at Durham University in England and Dr. Anna Hielm-Björkman, a professor of equine and small animal medicine at the University of Helsinki who is monitoring a canine Covid-detection trial at the airport in the Finnish capital.
“All these experts … have been studying how dogs can detect Covid-19 and other diseases such as cancer,” he said. “Some of them are already operating [Covid-19 detection] programs in airports.”
Castilla said that his first group of canine Covid sleuths could be deployed to the international airport in Hermosillo in as soon as two weeks. That would make them the first Covid-19 detection dogs to work at an airport in Latin America, he said.
Castilla added that he plans to train a new group of six furry recruits that could be put to work at hospitals and entry points to Sonora, where they could do their bit to help prevent the spread of coronavirus in the state.
Mancilla, the epilepsy sufferer and owner of budding Covid detection dog Leia, told Milenio that he and his colleagues would one day like to open a canine institute where perceptive pups will undertake training to sniff out a range of different diseases.
A professional violinist out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic is offering virtual serenades to keep himself employed.
Genghis Díaz, a talented musician who has represented Mexico around the world, is offering his services via social media for anyone who wishes to send a friend or loved one a personalized musical message.
“At first I survived with the savings I had and later I offered the serenades online through Facebook among friends and acquaintances,” Díaz told the newspaper Milenio of his struggle to provide for himself, his cat Katniss and his English shepherd Rex during the pandemic.
Booking a serenade is a simple process. Customers reach out to Díaz via Facebook or Twitter to request a song. He films himself playing it and offering a personalized message for the recipient and sends it to customers the day before the special occasion.
Social media savvy, Díaz has produced a promotional video of himself performing a version of pop star Ed Sheeran’s song Perfect, and has also sought retweets from several established influencers, including Mexico’s Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero and journalist Jorge Ramos.
¡Hoy en el #diadelaniña regalen una serenata virtual! La importancia de inculcar el arte y la cultura desde edades tempranas influyen positivamente en el desarrollo emocional de las niñas.
Reviews of his virtual serenades have all been positive, he says, no small feat on social media where commenters can be hypercritical.
“For mommy’s birthday, I asked @GenghisDiaz to record a custom serenade for her, and she loved it! She was crying with happiness. Thank you very much Genghis for helping me make her day special now that we are all so far away physically,” wrote one satisfied customer.
Before confinement, Díaz played at social events such as weddings andquinceañeras (15th birthday parties) and gave violin lessons. Students were not interested in taking online violin classes, he says, and dropped out during confinement, but Díaz is hopeful that as coronavirus restrictions continue to be lifted they will return, as will other opportunities from the contacts he has made in recent months on Facebook and Twitter.
“I knew how to adapt and I knew how to find a key to doing things and it can be said that I am the pioneer in that because I understand the network perfectly. I knew how to exploit it and get the shares, the retweets, the likes, and all of that,” he said.
“What we have always done, and we will have to do is adapt to the times.”
