Ikea plans to begin online sales in the fall but first store might be delayed

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May 29, 2020

Swedish furniture and home accessories retailer Ikea will begin online sales in Mexico in the fall but it is unclear when the company’s first bricks and mortar store will open.

Malcolm Pruys, Ikea’s CEO in Mexico, told the news website Expansión that the company is going ahead with its plan to begin e-commerce sales in the fall but the opening of the first store in Mexico City could be delayed.

Pruys said last May that the company planned to open the store near the Benito Juárez International Airport in October of 2020. However, the CEO says now that he can’t say when the long-awaited store will open.

“If I gave you a date, I’d be lying,” Pruys said.

He said that the company is doing all it can to stick to the plan to open in October but added: “I can’t say that we won’t be delayed.”

Construction has been halted due to the coronavirus pandemic but Pruys said that hasn’t overly upset Ikea’s expansion into Mexico because the company always considers different eventualities in its plans.

He explained that the company’s 110-strong workforce is still working despite the coronavirus crisis, although they’re no longer in the office but in their homes.

Pruys said that he was aware that Ikea will arrive in the Mexican market at a time when the retail industry will be forced to make adjustments in order to operate in a Covid-safe economy.

However, the company has experiences in other countries that will help it in Mexico and has already developed protocols for contact-free home deliveries, he said.

Given that disposable income will fall for a lot of people as a result of the coronavirus-induced economic crisis, purchasing new furniture and other home accessories will likely not be a priority for many.

However, Pruys said that the coronavirus lockdown may have changed people’s relationship with their homes, so there will be an opportunity for Ikea to speak to them about how they can make improvements to their living spaces.

“A lot of people would have spent a lot more time at home and when you spend a lot of time at home you see it quite differently,” he said.

“I wonder if everything I have makes me happy, if I’m well organized, if I have a good couch, if I’m comfortable and relaxed. … There is a great opportunity for us to speak to people about how we can help them with this and how we can improve their homes,” Pruys said.

He added that Mexicans’ confidence in buying online appears to have increased as a result of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders.

“What I see most in the streets at the moment are the vehicles of companies like Mercado Libre and Amazon.”

Ikea is investing approximately US $500 million in Mexico to build its new store, an e-commerce warehouse and a production plant. The company’s retail project leader in Mexico said last year that the store will employ between 300 and 350 people.

Pruys has said previously that Ikea is planning to open more stores in other Mexican cities but didn’t specify when or where.

Source: Expansión (sp)

How to work from home without getting laptop backache

By

John Pint

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May 29, 2020

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Laptops are fine for vacations, but long hours of use can cause back pain.

In the year 2003, more than 9,200 non-government workers missed a day or more of work because of typing or keyboarding related injuries, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics.

In 2008, the situation was exacerbated as sales of laptop computers overtook those of desktops for the first time. Today, according to Guadalajara yoga master Paul King, things are getting much worse, as more and more people are turning their laptop into their principal workhorse while confined to their homes because of Covid-19.

“People are now working at laptops for long hours, although this is not what they were designed for. The ergonomics of a laptop are quite different from those of a desktop. In the former, the keyboard and screen are very close together and not easily separable. This means, even if you work at a table or desk, you are looking downward, rather than forward.

“Typically your lumbar is convex instead of its natural concavity, shoulders are rounded forward, your chest is collapsed, and the back of the neck is permanently extended. This posture spells potential long-term health problems for anyone who regularly works for hours on a laptop.”

King says you can improve this situation by investing in an external keyboard and raising the level of the laptop screen, for example by placing it on top of a stack of books, so you are looking straight at the screen. Your feet should be flat on the floor and both your forearms and your thighs should be parallel to the floor. Sit upright, weight in the center of your sitting bones, neither pressing the lumbar forward nor allowing it to collapse back. If this is difficult to maintain, maybe use a lumbar support.

Raise laptop to eye level and use external keyboard. Put those old dictionaries to good use!

“Of course this set-up works well for people who can touch type,” he comments, “but if you can’t and you still need to look down at the keyboard, the problem remains.”

What can happen to you if you work like this for a long time? “In the short term you may get a headache or feel stress in your neck and shoulders. If your upper back and neck muscles are contracted for a long time, and circulation to your heart is reduced by your collapsed chest, the flow of blood and oxygen to your whole body is reduced. As a result, you are not working at your optimum health and intellect level. In the long run you could end up with spinal problems.”

King says that modern people are losing the natural curvature of their neck. Looking down a lot causes the muscles in the back of the neck to elongate. If people spend a lot of the day in this position, the muscles lose their elasticity and computer users may get what is called a “flat neck,” with possible pain and compression of the disks.

So what can you do if you work at a keyboard all day? “I recommended that you take a break at least once an hour and do certain simple exercises,” says the yoga instructor. The only “prop” you need is a simple, straight-back chair.

1. Sit forward on the chair, reach behind you and grab the lower part of the chair’s back with both hands. Press down with the hands and lift the chest while rolling your shoulders back. Try to make your upper back concave. You can also look up to release the back of the neck.

2. The spinal twist: sit sideways on the chair with your feet and knees together and grab the upper part of the chair’s back with both hands, elbows wide apart. Now you can twist your trunk easily, using one hand to push and the other to pull. When you do this, turn the abdomen first, then the chest and finally the head. On each inhalation focus upon lengthening your spine upwards, and then continue the twist on each exhalation. “Twists are so beneficial for both the spine and the abdominal organs,” adds the yoga expert. “It’s always best to do each of them twice.”

Exercise 3: Fully extend your arms and trunk parallel to the floor. Paul King, IYOGA

3. Place your hands on the back of the chair and walk away so as to fully extend your arms and trunk parallel to the floor. Maintain this posture for a while, and with each exhalation lengthen the sides of the trunk more. This creates space between the vertebrae.

4. Finally, to correct the typically bad spinal position of people who have been sitting for a long time, you can, while seated, separate your feet and lean your chest forward between your knees. Place your fingers on the floor and let the weight of your trunk and head sink towards the floor. Breathe into your lower back and allow the spinal muscles to relax as the back lengthens and rounds. To go deeper you can clasp your hands behind your neck, until your head is lower than your knees.

The five chair exercises, King told me, will help correct problems of posture caused not only by laptops and desktops, but also by smartphones. Typing with both thumbs on a tiny keyboard close to the chest, he says, causes one to look down more sharply and to hunch the shoulders and upper back even more.

“This little workout,” concludes King, “will help you correct problems of posture and keep your spine mobile and healthy. Another thing that’s good to do is to rest your eyes by going outside and looking at distant objects.”

Paul King mentioned that all of the above exercises are in the spirit of B.K. S. Iyengar, founder of Iyengar Yoga, which is practiced by millions of students around the world. It is a form of yoga that emphasizes correct alignment and uses various props to make postures more accessible.

In 1952, Iyengar met and befriended the famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin. The story of this very unlikely meeting —which changed Menuhin’s life — is told in The Yoga Teacher and the Violinist. Menuhin eventually arranged for Iyengar to teach in London, Switzerland, Paris and elsewhere, resulting in the subsequent popularity of yoga in the West. In 2004, Iyengar was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He died in 2014 at the age of 95.

[soliloquy id="112353"]

One of Iyengar’s contributions to yoga was his application of exercises to health problems like chronic backache, high blood pressure and insomnia. Paul King says: “It’s never too late to start yoga.” His school, iYoga Studio, is located in Guadalajara.

If you find this short workout helpful, and especially if you experience shoulder-neck pain, you may also be interested in Five More Exercises to Protect you from Laptop Revenge.

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.

Scientists, academics rattled after AMLO attacks them for corruption

By

MND Staff

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May 29, 2020

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Cuts won't affect the operation of the institutions but will help stamp out corruption and abusive practices, AMLO said. — Cuts won't affect the operation of the institutions but will help stamp out corruption and abusive practices, López Obrador said.

Members of the scientific and academic communities have criticized the federal government’s newly-announced budget cuts and hit back at President López Obrador’s claim that they are corrupt and guilty of committing abusive practices.

The Finance Ministry said last week that 75% budget cuts would apply this year to a range of federally-funded institutions including the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt), the Center for Research in Teaching and Economics (CIDE) and the Center for Investigation and Advanced Research (Cinvestav).

López Obrador made his corruption allegation against scientists and academics at his morning press conference on Wednesday while attempting to justify the cuts. He said that the cuts won’t affect the operation of the institutions but will help to stamp out corruption and abusive practices.

“Whenever a measure like this is taken they say … ‘the researchers will be left without [money to buy] food.’ … That’s the way it always is in order to maintain the abuse, the cronyism, the nepotism, all the scourges of politics,” López Obrador said.

He charged that researcher are not exempt from committing acts of corruption, asserting that “it’s completely proven” that there were “abuses” at Conacyt.

The president is dismantling the nation's scientific structure, charged biologist Antonio Lazcano. — The president is dismantling the nation’s scientific structure, charged biologist Antonio Lazcano.

“Money for medicines was stolen, what more can we say?” López Obrador said.

The president questioned the morality of scientists who have criticized the government’s budget cuts and compared them to the cientificos who advised Porfirio Díaz, the former Mexican president who led the country in a dictatorial manner for more than 30 years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Antonio Lazcano, a biologist at the National Autonomous University, described the cuts and the president’s attack on the scientific community as a surprise, although it’s not the first time López Obrador’s administration has reduced funding for science.

“I think that the government’s current anti-intellectual attitude is absolutely surprising,” he said, adding that it is equally surprising that Conacyt director María Elena Álvarez-Buylla has not spoken out against it.

Lazcano charged that Álvarez-Buylla has become “an ally” of the government’s anti-science “attitudes” rather than a defender of the scientific community.

Speaking at a conference, the biologist said he was unaware of the reason why López Obrador sees scientists in such an unfavorable light and warned that he is dismantling the nation’s “scientific structure,” which was built up over many years.

“A lot of us were astonished when he started to characterize researchers in a completely unfair way, as if we were social parasites enjoying [high] salaries, trips and privileges,” Lazcano said.

For his part, noted archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma described the situation as “really worrying.”

“The president has made declarations [against the academic community] on other occasions but they now gain strength because of the [budget] cuts the Finance Ministry is ordering,” he said.

Matos, head of the archaeological team that excavated the Templo Mayor site in Mexico City in the late 1970s and early ’80s, said that the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) has already suspended some of its activities as a result of the 750-million-peso (US $33.7-million) budget cut it will face.

Some projects could be canceled, he said, describing the budget cuts as regrettable.

Matos criticized the government for pouring money into its large infrastructure projects, such as the Maya Train and the new Pemex refinery on the Tabasco coast, at the same time as it is taking resources out of science and culture.

Cinvestav is one of the scientific research agencies whose budget has been cut.

“Oil will run out one day, culture won’t,” he said.

Eusebio Juaristi, a chemist who won the National Science Prize in the late 1990s, said the cuts to the educational and research centers, such as CIDE and Cinvestav, will affect both academic staff and students.

There will be minimal if any progress made on research projects without adequate funding, he said.

“I believe that [the impact] will be very serious, not just for the development of the researchers but also for the development of the students,” Juaristi said.

Julieta Fierro, an astrophysicist, said that “taking away … the operational budget – just like that – is a mistake.”

She rejected López Obrador’s claim that the scientific community is corrupt, pointing out that its members are subjected to rigorous evaluation.

“Our students evaluate us, … the journals in which we write evaluate us, … the institutions where we work evaluate us, Conacyt evaluates us, so it would be very difficult for us to be crooks,” Fierro said.

“I don’t doubt that there are people who are but I don’t believe it’s the majority. … Science is very rigorous and in order to have a good salary, evaluations are needed and an evaluation obviously measures the rigor of the research one does,” she said.

Elisa Servín, a historian at INAH, said it was unconscionable that López Obrador is labeling scientists corrupt at a time when they are working to save lives by developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus.

“How is it possible that at a time like this the president says that science is [a pursuit] of the corrupt?”

Source: Reforma (sp), El Universal (sp), Infobae (sp)

2 high-profile cases of domestic violence in México state

By

Susy Buchanan

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May 29, 2020

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The Naucalpan notary in an altercation with his wife.

As emergency calls related to domestic violence surge, two high-profile cases have been reported in México state.

Horacio Enrique Jiménez López, a former state deputy and senior official with the city of Naucalpan de Juárez, was arrested for allegedly beating his wife and kidnapping her on Thursday.

Jiménez, 58, was arrested after a call was placed to police about a man beating a woman inside an SUV.

Also yesterday, and also in Naucalpan, after a video of notary public Horacio Aguilar Álvarez de Alba mistreating his wife went viral, Aguilar issued a public apology on his Twitter account, pleading for forgiveness from his wife, the governor and society in general.

Aguilar is an ordained deacon in the Catholic Church and had been previously accused of attempted rape by 10 alleged victims.

The video shows Aguilar and his wife fighting outside their home as the man struggles to force his wife to give up a set of keys.

“I am not going to give them to you: it is my house and you cannot throw me out,” the woman says. Later he pulls on the waistband of her pants. “You’re hurting me,” she yells as a man films the incident on his cell phone.

“I take this opportunity to offer a sincere apology to the wronged person, both personally and as a member of the Mexican army,” Aguilar wrote in his apology. “If the facts are put to the consideration of the competent authorities, I will submit to any fair resolutions that they may issue.”

Emergency calls due to domestic violence are way up in Mexico during the coronavirus pandemic, spiking to 400,000 911 calls in April alone.

Source: La Jornada (sp), La Jornada (sp), Proceso (sp)

Sinaloa collective’s drone shot down during search for graves

By

Cody Copeland

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May 29, 2020

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Wearing shirts bearing the message, 'Where are they?' Sinaloa searchers look for bodies.

A collective of mothers searching for their disappeared children had its drone shot out of the sky while using it to examine a rugged area of Sinaloa on Wednesday.

Deeming their work an essential activity, the Sabuesos Guerreras (Warrior Sleuths) have continued to look for their loved ones during the quarantine period.

The group denounced the action in a Facebook post on Thursday morning, saying “at least they didn’t shoot at us.”

“It wasn’t too high, about the height of a house, and they shot it down. We just kept exploring the area to continue our search, without caring if we bothered anyone,” said the group.

They also said they would not file an official report of the incident as they haven’t received any help from police during any of their search efforts so far.

“What for? If they won’t do anything, we’ll buy another one,” concluded the post.

The women have already started on that, organizing !Dronatón!, a donation campaign to help raise funds for a new unmanned aircraft.

They are requesting direct donations be deposited into the Bancomer account of María Isabel Cruz Bernal, with the account number 4152 3135 1589 0114. More information can be obtained (Spanish preferable) by writing to the Juan Panadero printshop collective.

The Sabuesos Guerreras have worked with the printshop and local artists to paint murals of the faces of Sinaloa’s disappeared on walls in the city of Culiacán.

Wednesday’s incident was not the first time the group has been attacked. Their “Sabuesomóvil,” a vehicle used to carry out searches, was stolen, and many members report having been threatened in attempts to intimidate them into giving up their efforts.

The search brigade is one of many across the country engaged in looking for hidden graves in the hopes of locating missing loved ones.

Sources: Milenio (sp), Revista Espejo (sp)

Tijuana priest takes to the streets, Facebook Live to deliver his sermons

By

Susy Buchanan

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May 29, 2020

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Tijuana's Rev. Echegollén adapts to the coronavirus pandemic.

With churches closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, one Catholic priest in Tijuana, Baja California, is still managing to spread the gospel.

Using a pickup truck and Facebook Live, Rev. Jorge Echegollén of the Parish of San Miguel Arcángel travels to the city’s hospitals to provide spiritual comfort to medical personnel and families of the afflicted.

“To all the sick, doctors, security guards and all the relatives, God bless you, in the name of the father,” Echegollén preaches.

Echegollén is one of about 20 priests dispatched by the Archdiocese of Tijuana to deliver drive-in blessings, communions and funeral services to the faithful which he also broadcasts online to a following of more than 6,000 viewers. The archdiocese also offers online confessions and counseling.

“I know that we are not going to change history if we do or do not give the blessing, but we trust in God’s mercy, especially for those most in need who are sick with Covid-19,” Echegollén says.

Before leaving on his motorized tour, Echegollén broadcasts a daily mass on YouTube from his church, taping photos of faithful parishioners to the empty pews. And although cyber-preaching serves an important need, the priest will welcome a full house when the time is right.

“People are very much missed. The noise of the children is the joy of the parish,” Echegollén says.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Imparcial (sp)

Journalists’ groups accuse AMLO of inciting violence with media attacks

By

Susy Buchanan

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May 29, 2020

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Jorge Armenta, the most recent victim of violence against journalists.

International journalism organizations have denounced President López Obrador’s attacks on journalists and the media as an “incitement to violence.”

The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA), a non-profit organization of over 1,300 publications based in Miami, Florida, issued a statement decrying the president’s attacks on news media, particularly those directed at El Universal and Reforma.

IAPA president Christopher Barnes said that the “authoritarian, ideological and derogatory bias with which López Obrador attacks the media can motivate those individuals who only need an excuse to incite violence and physically attack journalists and the media.”

Barnes added that “in a country with high rates of violence, the presidential attitude is like throwing gasoline on the fire.”

The president of the IAPA committee on freedom of the press and information, Roberto Rock, said that “López Obrador’s systematic smear campaigns have also targeted international media such as The Financial Times, The Washington Post and El País,” among others.

On May 13, the newspaper Reforma received threats that its headquarters would be bombed if its criticisms against López Obrador persisted.

Jan Albert Hootsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists also weighed in after journalist Jorge Miguel Armenta Avalos was murdered in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, earlier this month.

“I believe that the Mexican federal government has a fairly complex relationship with the media at the national and local levels. The most extreme case is the complex relationship of rhetorical attacks, of open hostility between the federal government and the media, which could lead to serious threats.”

“Anyone who publishes a story that he does not like becomes a kind of enemy,” says José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Human Rights Watch Americas division, who claims the Mexican president uses his daily press briefings to discredit the media.

Source: El Universal (sp), La Razón (sp)

Hundreds of dolphins sighted swimming off coast of Oaxaca

By

Cody Copeland

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May 29, 2020

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Dolphins off the coast of Oaxaca this week.

Hundreds of dolphins were sighted in several locations off the coast of Oaxaca on multiple occasions this week.

It is believed that the pods of dolphins have decided to splash around near popular tourist destinations like Huatulco and Puerto Escondido due to the lack of tourists and other people in or on the water thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fishermen from the Manialtepec Lagoon first reported seeing dolphins on Tuesday, and subsequent reports popped up in neighboring Puerto Escondido, and even as far east as Cacaluta and other bays in Huatulco, informally billed as the “Cancún of Oaxaca.”

The phenomenon has captured the attention of inhabitants of the region and internet users alike. The latter have enjoyed videos posted to social media showing large pods of the splashing mammals.

Most viewers agree that the majority of the animals appear to be spinner dolphins, which perform their acrobatic namesake when they leap from the surface.

Captan a cientos de delfines paseándose en la Costa de Oaxaca

Watch this video on YouTube

Dolphins aren’t the only members of the animal kingdom to start nosing their way back into territory left behind by humans during the pandemic.

Just a few weeks into the quarantine, crocodiles that normally hide out from humans in the waters of Oaxaca’s La Ventanilla Lagoon were spotted roaming the beach like they owned the place.

And in April residents in Acapulco observed bioluminescent plankton painting the waves of the city’s main bay electric blue at night.

Oaxaca is Mexico’s most biodiverse state and an important nesting destination for all but one of the world’s sea turtle species. Researchers have identified over 8,400 varieties of plants and 1,431 species of vertebrates.

Source: La Opción (sp)

Apart from one state, all of Mexico is painted red on new ‘stoplight’ map

By

MND Staff

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May 29, 2020

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The current status of Covid-19 risk levels indicates all states at the maximum level apart from Zacatecas, which was designated high risk.

Every state except Zacatecas has been allocated a “red light” on the federal government’s stoplight system to determine which coronavirus restrictions can be lifted and where, meaning that nonessential activities will not recommence on Monday in the vast majority of the country.

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell presented a map at Friday morning’s presidential press conference that showed that the risk of Covid-19 infection has been deemed to be at the maximum level in 31 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities.

Zacatecas, which currently has 59 active Covid-19 cases, is considered a high risk “orange light” state.

“This evaluation was made on May 28, it’s the most up-to-date and it is what will enter into force on Monday, June 1,” López-Gatell said.

“At the end of the national social distancing initiative, this is how the country is. But, and we’ve said it before, the health safety measures don’t end,” he said, explaining that it will now be the responsibility of state governments to implement restrictions in accordance with the color they are allocated on the stoplight system.

The risk-levels map that was published May 12. — The risk-levels map that was published May 12

Today’s map paints a much different picture than the first such map, issued on May 13 when the stoplight system was announced. At the time, fewer than a dozen states were given a red light.

The deputy minister said that the stoplight map will be updated on a weekly basis and that federal authorities will subsequently announce the color that corresponds to each state and which activities can resume in each one.

States will be allocated a red, orange, yellow or green light depending on the number of active and new coronavirus cases they have, their hospital admission trends and their hospital occupancy levels.

In “red” states, only essential economic activities will be permitted including the newly-designated sectors of construction, mining and automotive.

Other sectors will be permitted to resume operations once the stoplight switches to orange but with a reduced capacity and/or workforce and with restrictions in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19. People considered to be particularly vulnerable to Covid-19 due to their age or existing health conditions will be permitted to return to work albeit with special protocols in place.

Public spaces will also be reopened during the orange light phase but at a reduced capacity.

Businesses will be able to increase their workforces and capacity once their state has been allocated a yellow light and there will be fewer restrictions in open-air public spaces. However, stricter restrictions will remain in force in indoor spaces such as restaurants, cinemas and theaters.

Once a state is given a green light, students will return to school and other educational institutions and all remaining restrictions on economic and everyday activities will be lifted.

López-Gatell said that Cancún, and the entire state of Quintana Roo, is close to being allocated a yellow light, which corresponds to the “medium risk” level.

“Cancún … is one of the cities that is closest to becoming a medium risk area … and it’s very probable that in the next few days, maybe a week, we will be able to announce that [its risk level] has been lowered,” he said.

That would pave the way for the reopening of Quintana Roo’s tourism sector, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus crisis.

The sector has launched a new tourism campaign to attract visitors to the Caribbean coast state after an expected reopening on June 8.

The World Travel and Tourism Council announced this week that the Mexican Caribbean will be the first destination in the Americas to receive a newly created “Safe Travels” global safety and hygiene certification, backed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization and more than 200 CEOs in the tourism sector.

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

Coronavirus pandemic far from being under control, warn UNAM researchers

By

MND Staff

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May 29, 2020

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A health worker ready to attend Covid-19 patients.

Mexico’s coronavirus case tally rose above 80,000 on Thursday and deaths passed 9,000 as researchers from the National Autonomous University (UNAM) warned that the pandemic is far from being under control.

The federal Health Ministry reported 3,377 new Covid-19 cases at a press briefing Thursday night, increasing the total number of accumulated cases since the start of the pandemic to 81,400.

It also reported 447 additional coronavirus-related deaths, lifting the official death toll to 9,044. Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that an additional 783 fatalities are suspected of having been caused by Covid-19 but have not yet been confirmed.

He said that 254,794 people have now been tested for the disease and that there are currently 36,131 suspected cases across the country.

Of the total number of confirmed cases, 16,315 are considered active, an increase of 723 compared to Wednesday.

Just under a quarter of the active cases – 3,972 – are in Mexico City while México state has the second largest active outbreak, with 2,202 cases.

The next biggest active outbreaks are in Baja California, Tabasco, Veracruz, Puebla and Sinaloa. All five states have more than 500 active cases.

Only three states – Colima, Zacatecas and Baja California Sur – currently have less than 100 active cases.

Mexico City also has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the country, with an additional 114 fatalities reported on Thursday, increasing the capital’s total to 2,427.

México state is the only other state with a four-figure death toll, having now recorded 1,046 fatalities.

More than 800 people have lost their lives to Covid-19 in Baja California while three states – Tabasco, Veracruz and Sinaloa – have death tolls in excess of 400.

The daily tally of Covid-19 cases and deaths. The latter is not necessarily the number of deaths that occurred each day, but the number confirmed. milenio

Based on confirmed cases and deaths, Mexico’s fatality rate is currently 11.1, well above the global rate of 6.2.

Mexico’s low testing rate means that the official case tally only represents a fraction of the real size of the pandemic while it is widely believed that Covid-19 deaths are being underreported, especially in Mexico City.

Hospitals in some cities, such as Mexico City, Tijuana and Acapulco, have come under intense pressure due to the large influx of coronavirus patients but data presented by the Health Ministry on Thursday night showed that the the health system still has significant capacity at a national level to accept new admissions.

Only 40% of general care beds set aside for the treatment of patients with serious respiratory symptoms are currently occupied while 35% of those with ventilators are in use.

The federal government’s national social distancing initiative will officially conclude on Saturday just over two months after it began but the risk of infection remains high, according to a map presented by López-Gatell on Friday morning.

He presented a map at the president’s regular press conference that showed that every state in the country except Zacatecas is currently considered to be at the maximum “red light” risk of infection. Zacatecas, which currently has 59 active cases, is considered a high risk “orange light” state.

“This evaluation was made on May 28, it’s the most up-to-date and it is what will enter into force on Monday, June 1,” López-Gatell said.

Consequently, Zacatecas will be the only state permitted to ease restrictions on Monday in accordance with the government’s color coded stoplight system.

As Mexico prepares to shift to coronavirus mitigation restrictions on a state by state rather than national basis, UNAM researchers warned that the first wave of infections in the pandemic is far from under control.

A report published by the Faculty of Medicine’s department of public health said the situation in Mexico is comparable to that in the United States, Brazil and Russia, which have the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world.

The report said that the pandemic is still in a growth phase and that Mexico should be implementing stricter measures to slow it.

Researcher Abril Violeta Muñoz Torres said the Mexican population is particularly susceptible to Covid-19 because of the high rates of diabetes and obesity.

She also said that studies have found that the fatality rate is higher among Covid-19 patients who were admitted to IMSS, ISSSTE and state-run public hospitals than those who received treatment at private health facilities as well as those operated by the army, navy, national health institutes and the state oil company.

Source: La Jornada (sp), Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)