Economic reactivation plan welcomed but it’s short on clarity and detail: critics

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May 14, 2020

The stoplight system indicates restrictions regarding activities in the left column. From the top they are public health measures, labor, public spaces, vulnerable persons and schools.

Business groups and analysts have welcomed the government’s plan to begin reopening the economy but not without criticism over a lack of clarity and detail.

The government revealed a three-phase plan Wednesday for the eventual lifting of coronavirus restrictions and a color-coded “stoplight” system to determine each state’s readiness to return to what is being called a “new normal.”

The plan stipulates that starting June 1 social distancing measures will be gradually lifted on a state by state basis depending on the severity of their outbreaks.

However, the president of the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) said the plan is short on clarity particularly with respect to the criteria that will be used to determine which color lights are assigned to each of Mexico’s 32 states.

(States will be assigned a red, orange, yellow or green light on a weekly basis, with each color determining which coronavirus mitigation restrictions can be lifted.)

Coparmex president de Hoyos questioned how municipalities' status will be indicated when the only map shows only the states. — Coparmex president de Hoyos questioned the criteria that will determine the color of lights assigned.

“We agree with the need to have a plan for a gradual and staggered reopening. However, the content presented today is insufficient in order to have clarity in the procedures,” said Coparmex chief Gustavo de Hoyos.

He also said that the government failed to make it clear whether the same color light will apply to an entire state or whether different colors will apply to different municipalities depending on the size of their coronavirus outbreaks.

“Companies need clear specifications in order to be able to prepare to restart activities immediately after the health authorities say they can,” de Hoyos said.

The Coparmex president also said the plan to reopen the economy next week in 269 coronavirus-free municipalities will only have a “minimal” impact on the economy because only 1% of businesses are located in them.

For his part, the president of the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation said that adding automotive production, construction and mining to the list of essential activities was a positive move but charged that beer production should also have been designated as essential.

Enoch Castellanos also said that small and medium-sized businesses need more support from the government to help them survive closure orders and the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.

The new color-coded map shows the alert level and a trending indicator by state. — The stoplight map shows the alert level and a trending indicator by state.

The director of analysis at the Monex financial group, described the plan outlined on Wednesday as “disjointed.”

The announcement of steps to reopen the economy is “positive news” but “there are still a lot of [unanswered] questions,” Carlos González Tabares said.

“I believe that a lot of details are missing,” González said, explaining that there is a lack of clarity about how new outbreaks will be mitigated as more and more people return to their normal daily lives. “The reopening has to be very cautious,” he said.

Raymundo Tenorio, an economist and emeritus professor of the Tec. de Monterrey University, said that it appears that the “stoplight” system plan was made on the fly, asserting that the government needs to think about how supply chains will work if businesses are open in one state but not another.

José Luis de la Cruz, general director of the Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth, a think tank, had a more positive view. He said the strategy is “positive and opportune because it allows companies to make an estimate of the time and stages in which they will be able to open.”

“The services sector is expected to reopen in September so [companies] can assess if they can hold out until that date or if they will have to dismiss staff and make adjustments,” he said.

Economist de la Torre: plan looks improvised.

However, while the government has a plan to allow businesses to reopen gradually, it doesn’t have a solid plan to support them financially through the crisis with measures such as tax breaks, de la Cruz said.

Rodolfo de la Torre, director of social development at the Espinosa Yglesias Study Center think tank, described the government’s plan as “improvised,” claiming that it rushed to develop it due to the heavy loss of jobs last month and the prediction that as many as 10.7 million additional people could be pushed into poverty as a result of the measures put in place to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

“Job losses could reach 1 million in May and if the stoppage due to the pandemic continues we could reach 1.5 million,” he said.

De la Torre also said the government should have provided income support for people who lost their jobs or who are unable to stay at home due to their economic circumstances. He expressed skepticism that the economy will recover quickly once the coronavirus mitigation restrictions are lifted, as Finance Ministry officials have claimed will occur.

“Suggesting that there will be a quick rebound in [economic] activity is far removed from reality,” de la Torre said, especially considering that the government hasn’t provided resources enabling “people and companies to resist” the coronavirus crisis.

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

Woman with coronavirus gives birth to triplets but only one has survived

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Susy Buchanan

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May 14, 2020

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The hospital where 46 staff were sent home in case of coronavirus.

After a woman with coronavirus gave birth to triplets in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, last week two of the babies died and 46 members of the hospital’s medical staff were sent home to self-isolate due to fears they may have been exposed to the virus.

The 29-year-old woman from Sombrerete traveled to the Zacatecas Women’s Hospital after she started going into premature labor on May 6, Health Ministry spokesman Jesús Gerardo López Longoria said.

The woman showed no signs of coronavirus when she was admitted.

Medical staff attempted to inhibit labor as the pregnancy was not to term, but were unsuccessful.

As labor progressed into Friday, doctors opted to perform a cesarean section and the three premature infants were sent to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, where two of them died.

All three babies tested negative for coronavirus; the two who died perished from pulmonary insufficiency due to their premature birth.

After surgery, medical staff noticed that the woman’s blood oxygen levels were low and tested her for coronavirus. The results came back positive.

The woman was transferred to another hospital’s dedicated Covid unit where she remains in stable condition.

However, during the four days she was at the Women’s Hospital the patient came into contact with many hospital personnel.

As a result, three obstetrician-gynecologists, 16 nurses, an x-ray technician, two orderlies, three janitors and 21 medical residents have been asked to self-isolate at home until Friday when they will be tested for the coronavirus before being allowed to return to work. None has reported symptoms thus far. The Ministry of Health has sent 15 nurses to help cover for those in quarantine.

Although the Women’s Hospital does not treat coronavirus patients, staff know that they could come into contact with asymptomatic patients at any time.

“Being a medical unit, the risk exists and health personnel know it. No one on the staff can say that they are not informed about the disease and its scope,” López said.

He called the experience a teaching moment and an opportunity “for the hospital to review protocols and ensure that they do not have weaknesses in the processes so that a similar event does not occur.”

Source: NTR Zacatecas (sp), El Universal (sp)

Hard-hit Mexico City has no plans yet to reopen economy

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Cody Copeland

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May 14, 2020

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Mayor Sheinbaum speaks at the president's morning press conference.

When state jurisdictions lift coronavirus mitigation measures as early as May 18, Mexico City will not likely be among them.

There are no plans to begin reopening the economy on June 1 as previously thought, according to Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum.

“Not yet. We’re going to make an announcement. We’re getting a plan ready,” she said at President López Obrador’s Thursday morning news conference.

The federal government released a color-coded, three-phase reopening plan on Wednesday. The first phase will begin as soon as May 18 for some areas, but the hard-hit capital is not ready for such a move.

Sheinbaum said her administration is still working on a plan to bring the city into what the federal government has termed “the new normal” despite Thursday’s leak of a government document detailing reopenings scheduled for June 15. The document also outlines school reopenings in August and September.

The city’s public relations department said the document was merely a draft that was presented with others to Sheinbaum as a possible plan for reopening.

The document proposed a reopening of businesses at a third of their normal capacity in mid-June. It would require the use of personal protective equipment, informational signage, sanitization of workspaces and transmission monitoring at those allowed to reopen.

It also proposed that churches, courts, theaters, cinemas and sporting events without spectators reinitiate services on June 15, and the reopening of corporate offices and government departments that do not serve the public directly in August.

The drafted plan stipulated that businesses including gyms, bars and nightclubs remain closed until September, but restaurants and department stores should be able to open in mid-June. The document recommends that businesses stagger their scheduling in order not to saturate public transportation.

The proposed plan also included fixed days of the week on which parks and shopping centers would be reserved exclusively for vulnerable sectors of the population.

The draft also proposes a 2,600-peso (US $107) monthly stipend to support low-income citizens.

But Sheinbaum reiterated that the document was nothing more than the result of a brainstorm and that the official plan is still in the works.

“Everything will stay the same for the time being,” she said.

Mexico City leads the country in terms of Covid-19 deaths with 1,057 as of Wednesday evening.

Source: La Jornada (sp)

Staff at three hospitals mount protests to demand medical supplies

By

Cody Copeland

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May 14, 2020

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Frontline medical professionals at three hospitals have protested a shortage of supplies for treating patients infected with Covid-19.

Around 100 doctors, nurses, orderlies and custodians at a Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospital in Texcoco, México state, blocked a highway on Wednesday to demand they be properly equipped to face the pandemic.

Nurses complained of being forced to treat up to 20 patients at a time, a task which, combined with the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), has led to at least five cases and one death from the disease among their colleagues, they said.

As many as 45 doctors and nurses at a community hospital in San Jacinto Tlacotepec, Oaxaca, have been on strike for almost the entirety of the quarantine period. The hospital serves a region of about 30,000 people.

Residents blocked roads and closed the local offices of the state Health Ministry on Wednesday to protest the situation.

The hospital employees said they will return to work once health authorities provide them with the basic medications and equipment they need to carry out their work safely, said union leader Mario Félix Pacheco.

A municipal councilor said local governments sent a letter to President López Obrador explaining that the indigenous communities suffer from severe shortages of medical supplies.

“We view with rage and indignation the lack of feeling for the unionized personnel that work at the hospital, … as they’ve gone on strike for weeks …” he said.

In addition to basic medications and PPE, the striking staff have demanded that the hospital hire pediatricians, a surgeon and an anesthesiologist.

In Mexico City, about 30 health workers at the La Raza Hospital for Infectious Diseases obtained results after they blocked a highway this week to protest a shortage of protective equipment. IMSS delivered 1,000 N95 face masks to the medical center on Wednesday and said another 500 masks were on their way.

Hospital administrator Efraín Arizmendi Uribe said the entire facility will be regularly sanitized beginning on Wednesday and promised that PPE and medications will remain permanently stocked through the duration of the pandemic.

He also ordered the immediate disbursement of recently arrived coveralls and face shields to the hospital employees that need them, and said he will conduct a tour of the facility in the coming days to hear the petitions and suggestions of his staff.

Health workers have protested shortages of PPE and other supplies since the beginning of the pandemic, demanding the tools they need not only to save patients’ lives, but also to protect their own.

“We don’t want another colleague to become infected,” said the nurses protesting in Texcoco.

Sources: Milenio (sp), La Jornada (sp), Reforma (sp)

Increased calls for more coronavirus testing before returning to ‘new normal’

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MND Staff

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May 14, 2020

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As Mexico moves toward a “new normal” while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to grow, an increasing number of experts are calling for testing to be ramped up in order to detect more cases and limit new outbreaks of the disease.

The federal government revealed a three-phase plan on Wednesday that will see social distancing measures gradually lifted on a state by state basis depending on the severity of their outbreaks starting on June 1.

But experts warn that reopening the economy and allowing people to return to their normal day-to-day activities without first testing more widely for Covid-19 could lead to a second wave of infections that is worse than the first.

Alejandro Macías, an infectious disease doctor, former government health commissioner and member of the National Autonomous University’s coronavirus commission, highlighted that even though the government is taking steps to reopen the economy, Mexico is still in the most critical phase of the pandemic.

He told the newspaper El Universal that it is unlikely that Mexico has already reached the peak of the pandemic and that without more testing – almost 150,000 people, or about 1,100 per 1 million inhabitants, have been tested to date – there will inevitably be large numbers of new cases.

Wednesday's death toll was the second highest yet recorded. — At 294, Wednesday’s death toll was the second highest yet recorded. Tuesday’s figure was the highest. milenio

“The risk of not testing but wanting to go back to normal is that there will be outbreaks not just in the community but in industries, as happened in the meat industry in the United States,” Macías said.

The risk of Covid-19 reappearing in parts of the country where outbreaks were thought to have been controlled is very high because nowhere near 100% of the population has been infected, he said. That means that there is still a very large number of potential hosts for the virus.

“I believe that the reasoning for doing so few tests cannot be maintained,” Macías said, referring to the government’s assurances that it can effectively monitor the development of the pandemic via its epidemiological surveillance system.

“That Mexico is one of the countries that has done the fewest tests cannot be defended, … I believe we must do more,” he said.

Rafael Lozano, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and a former director of health information at Mexico’s Health Ministry, asserted that testing helps save lives and that lockdown measures cannot be lifted without first significantly increasing the number of people who have been tested.

“Timely diagnoses are needed in order to be able to identify people who require isolation and treatment,” he said, adding that the plan to lift social distancing restrictions shouldn’t be developed until after widespread testing has taken place.

If testing is not ramped up before restrictions are eased, the pandemic could worsen in areas already suffering from large outbreaks, Lozano said. If restrictions are lifted “hastily,” he added, “there is no reason to think that there won’t be exponential spread.”

The academic charged that authorities should wait for at least two weeks to pass without any coronavirus-related deaths in a certain area before relaxing isolation measures.

Rodolfo de la Torre, director of social development at the Espinosa Yglesias Study Center, a Mexico City think tank, also said that more testing is needed before the government declares an end to national social distancing, which is set to be superseded by state-based restrictions at the start of next month.

A return to “normality” cannot even be thought of without first performing more tests, he said.

“That’s the only way … to avoid infections en masse. … The government is acting rashly in the return to normality; hopefully they’ll take the suggestions of academics and epidemiologists into account and apply them in their plan. … A strategy that looks after the health of Mexicans has to be drawn up because a new outbreak … could be worse than what we’re going through now,” de la Torre said.

The government’s announcement of its color-coded “stoplight” system to determine each state’s readiness to return to the “new normal” came just hours before the Health Ministry reported that the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Mexico had passed 40,000 and that the death toll had exceeded 4,000.

Coronavirus case numbers as of Wednesday. milenio

At Wednesday night’s press briefing, Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reported 1,862 new coronavirus cases, increasing the total number of accumulated cases to 40,186, and 294 fatalities, lifting the death toll to 4,220.

The daily death toll was the second highest since the first coronavirus-related fatality was reported on March 18. The highest death toll, and the biggest single-day increase in case numbers, were reported a day earlier on Tuesday.

Based on confirmed cases and deaths, the fatality rate in Mexico is now 10.5 per 100 cases, a figure that has crept up steadily in recent weeks. Mexico City, the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus crisis, has now recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths and is approaching 11,000 confirmed cases, according to official data.

Eleven of Mexico’s 32 states have triple-figure death tolls, with Baja California, México state and Tabasco reporting the most after the capital.

Of the more than 40,000 confirmed cases, 9,378 are currently considered active, a figure that has increased over the past two days after declining for the first time in almost three weeks on Monday. Alomía said that there are also 24,856 suspected cases of Covid-19 across the country.

Later in the press briefing, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that the government is prepared to change its plan to reopen the economy and return to a semblance of normality if it sees that case numbers are spiking considerably.

“I want to make it very clear that the government of Mexico has the attitude that if something goes wrong, … we’ll change course according to what is needed,” he said.

López-Gatell said that the government is aiming to identify the optimal time to relax restrictions in different parts of the country, asserting that there are no established guidelines or World Health Organization document that give concrete advice on the subject.

“We’re still looking for the moment,” he said, adding that state governors will be able to take their own decisions about which restrictions should be lifted and which should remain in place.

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

New investigation suggests death toll 5 times higher than reported in Mexico City

By

MND Staff

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May 13, 2020

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Reports that Mexico City crematoriums were being overwhelmed first appeared on the weekend.

The coronavirus death toll in Mexico City is five times higher than federal government data shows, claims a report by British media organization Sky News.

Published on Wednesday, the report says that crematoriums in the capital have three-day backlogs of bodies as deaths surge in both Mexico City and neighboring México state.

Sky said that an investigations team working in Mexico City gained access to morgues and storage rooms full of bodies, and they too indicate that the data presented by the federal Health Ministry at its nightly coronavirus press briefings is wrong.

According to official data presented on Tuesday, 937 people in Mexico City have died after testing positive for Covid-19 while the death toll in México state – which includes many municipalities that are part of the greater metropolitan area of the capital – is 378.

But Sky News says it was told by an official within the government – it didn’t specify whether it was referring to the federal or Mexico City government – that the Health Ministry figures are undercounting the real death rate by a factor of at least five.

The Sky News report comes five days after The New York Times reported that officials in Mexico City “have tallied more than three times as many fatalities in the capital than the [federal] government publicly acknowledges.”

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum denied that the fatality numbers reported by the federal government for the capital are wrong, while Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell – Mexico’s coronavirus point man – accused the Times of a “lack of rigor” in its reporting. For his part, President López Obrador charged that the newspaper lacks ethics.

But Sky News said that on-the-ground evidence and an analysis of fatality numbers in Mexico City and México state in early May compared to the same month in previous years support the claim that Covid-19 deaths are being drastically underreported.

It said that it accessed multiple hospital morgues as well as hospital rooms filled with bodies in bags, “lying on gurneys or even stacked on wooden pallets because the morgue fridges are already full.”

The autopsy lab of one hospital is being used to store bodies, Sky said, making the examination tables redundant. It said that none of the temporary morgues at hospitals were refrigerated and that medical staff confirmed that all the bodies stored in them were victims of Covid-19.

Sky News also said that burning capacity at every public crematorium in the capital is overwhelmed, creating a three-day backlog for cremations. Reports in Mexican media this week also said that crematoriums in Mexico City are saturated and that some families are choosing to take the bodies of their loved ones to México state for cremation.

“Black smoke billows out over cemeteries as the ovens are cremating on an industrial level in the city but the bodies don’t stop coming. … In full hazmat suits, crematorium staff are working around the clock bringing bodies to huge ovens for disposal,” Sky said.

“The number of people being cremated is staggering, as is the volume of hearses and traffic around the crematoria. The queues are endless.”

The media company said that analysis of data from 30 crematoriums in Mexico City shows that each one is currently cremating between 18 and 22 bodies per day and each has a three-day backlog.

“Taking an average number of 20 cremations, Sky has calculated the total number of cremations every day is 600. This figure does not include other crematoria or burials,” the report said.

That daily number of cremations is much higher than the average of 374 deaths per day that occurred in both Mexico City and México state during the month of May between 2014 and 2018, Sky said. Logically, not all of the México state deaths would have occurred in municipalities that are part of the Mexico City metropolitan area.

In any case, Sky concluded that at least 226 extra deaths are occurring “every day in early May” in the Mexico City area and that most were probably caused by coronavirus.

The news organization said that it was told by crematorium sources that 80% to 90% of the bodies they are currently cremating are Covid-19 victims.

“Assuming 80% of the excess deaths dealt with by crematoria are due to coronavirus, Sky’s analysis suggests the government’s official figure is just 19% of the true number of Covid-19 deaths in the Mexican capital and the actual figure is around five times higher than the health department’s website would indicate — the same amount we were told by our source,” the report said.

Sky said that it asked the government to explain the discrepancy but it didn’t respond.

One man whose brother-in-law died after developing coronavirus-like symptoms told Sky that the government is “obviously lying” about the number of Covid-19 deaths.

“Here everything is a mess, they are not going to give you exact numbers, and I am not just talking about Mexico City, but the entire country,” he said while waiting for his sister outside a cemetery in the borough of Iztapalapa.

Sky also said that it spoke with senior private sector medical specialists who said that they warned the government of the impending epidemic in January but were told that there was nothing it could do.

“It has fueled speculation among people familiar with the true figures that the government is going to try to tough out the virus spread and deal with the fallout later. Failing to publish accurate death rates appears to be part of a strategy of containing panic in the worst hit poorer parts of Mexico City,” the report said.

But even as total coronavirus-related deaths approach 4,000, “the government’s failure to publish the real [fatality] numbers has left Mexico in denial of the pandemic,” Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay said in a video report that accompanied today’s article.

“The upward curve of death looks set to rocket, the health service can’t cope and social distancing, let alone lockdown, is largely being ignored in Mexico City,” the Sky report said, contradicting data presented by the Health Ministry on Tuesday night that showed that mobility in the capital has been 65% lower than normal for more than a month.

Still, “short of a vaccine or a miracle,” Sky concluded, the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on Mexico City “could be utterly catastrophic.”

Mexico News Daily

For vendors without savings, credit or support, aid group comes to the rescue

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Lydia Carey

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May 13, 2020

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This Mexico City flower vendor was getting desperate when a volunteer turned up with a bag of food supplies.

Vendors. Thousands of them roam the Mexico City subways, sell tacos on the avenues, and offer artisanal trinkets to passersby. They make up about 10% of the city’s population and are the lifeblood of its streets.

Already one of the most marginalized groups in Mexico City’s economy, they and their customers are being forced off the sidewalk. With little or no savings, minimal access to credit, and no stimulus package, these vendors are in economic peril.

Daniel is one of them, and sells flowers on a corner in one of the city’s central neighborhoods. When the pandemic hit he didn’t think he would make it. He was losing more money each day and getting desperate.

But then appeared a little glimmer of hope. From a friend of a friend, he learned about a network of volunteers and recipients that make up Ayuda Mutua, a local mutual aid group in the heart of Mexico’s capital. When a volunteer from the group showed up at his stand a few weeks ago with a despensa – a basket of basic foodstuffs – he reciprocated with a massive bunch of flowers.

It seems like mutual aid groups have spread almost as quickly as Covid around the globe. Two buzzwords in a world reeling from medical shortages, insufficient financial aid, and rising death tolls. From food aid to babysitting to groups like one in Puerto Rico, originally set up for Hurricane Maria disaster relief, people are leaning on their neighbors like never before.

Recipients of Ayuda Mutua's despensas. — Recipients of Ayuda Mutua’s despensas.

In Mexico City a lingering mutual aid infrastructure remains from other eras, other times when the city was paralyzed and neighbors forced to rely on each other. When the devastating 1985 earthquake hit, thousands of local volunteers dug through the rubble for survivors and set up shelters in the street. During the 2017 earthquake, local parks were converted to donation centers, cyclists rushed supplies to collapsed building sites, and volunteers made sandwich upon sandwich to feed the suddenly homeless and the emergency workers serving them.

Hannah Swenson remembers arriving in Mexico City at that very moment.

“My first time to Mexico City was a few days before the earthquake. I was staying at this little hostel near Parque Mexico … where we made sandwiches and organized things.

“Energetically, how that felt, and how the city responded, that to me is the root of mutual aid.”

Ayuda Mutua sprung from a simple conversation between Swenson and her roommate – what can we do? Will people need emotional support, they wondered, or someone to run errands and walk dogs? What would be safe to take on? Other friends felt inclined to help as well and small teams of volunteers started to organize around specific goals.

One team would reach out to already established Mexico City non-profits, one would handle calls for requests and relay them to a delivery team, one would get the word out by posting flyers all over the city.

A volunteer, left, delivers a bag of supplies to a Mexico City resident.

“It started out as friends of friends, neighbors of neighbors,” says Swenson, “but once the word got out, and people started to see us as a trusted resource, the requests multiplied.”

While she may have helped kick this thing off, Hannah quickly demurs at being called the leader or the founder of the group. Like most mutual aid organizations, this one combines horizontal organization and a leader-less structure for collective action. Decision making is led by the current group of volunteers and transparency is woven into the organization’s daily fabric – even how the money gets spent.

There may be a little more receptivity for the concept of mutual aid in Mexico, where citizens are generally distrustful of institutions and the government and have a long history of grassroots uprisings and solidarity movements. Rallying together in times of need is familiar to indigenous communities long neglected in Mexico’s countryside and neighborhoods that have banded together when local government failed.

Ayuda Mutua places no restrictions on who receives aid and who provides relief. If you need something you ask, if you have something to give you offer. Unlike similar groups in other cities, this isn’t neighborhood-exclusive. Volunteers have traveled to the far reaches of the city with dog food, diabetes medication, and even a mattress for a woman who was sleeping on the floor. They’ve helped widowed seniors and out-of-work freelancers.

As weeks of quarantine and pandemic have worn on, a basic and ubiquitous need has surfaced — weekly groceries, like the despensa that Daniel received. Boxes of basics including fresh fruits and vegetables along with staples like rice, beans and tortillas are delivered weekly to families in need. Vegetales Frescos, a third-generation family business in the city’s Central de Abasto market, is helping Ayuda Mutua organize and deliver the baskets for about US $12 apiece.

More of a response team than a non-profit, Ayuda Mutua has joined forces with other groups like Mi Valedor to work with marginalized populations in the city, and Roca de Forteleza that is helping get despensas out to seniors. They’ve also taken requests from Haciendo Calle, a support network for trans sex workers, and Casa Hogar HALAC, a home for children in Tláhuac.

Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.A volunteer, left, delivers a bag of supplies to a Mexico City resident. — Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.

Whatever requests they can fulfill, they do. The over $126,000 that they have raised through crowdfunding campaigns and direct giving has helped to support 289 families through the crisis, but there are still 150+ families on the despensa waiting list. Five flower vendors, including Daniel, just took part in the group’s Mother’s Day flower drive where they raised over $1,300 to be split among them.

“We envisioned a pretty dark panorama during this crisis,” says Daniel, “but thanks to the [Ayuda Mutua] platform we were able to have a great day on Sunday. The happiness of people when we delivered their bouquets was definitely part of the payment for our effort.”

This group, like most of its ilk, will likely dissipate once the crisis has passed and people get back to their regular lives. But for those affected by the support it provided, Ayuda Mutua will bring a handful of Mexico City’s millions just that much closer.

Lydia Carey is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily. She lives in Mexico City.

300,000 Covid-19 test kits to arrive from China on weekend: foreign minister

By

MND Staff

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May 13, 2020

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The Chinese ambassador, left and Ebrard. — The Chinese ambassador, left, and Ebrard at a meeting Tuesday in Mexico.

A shipment of 300,000 Covid-19 testing kits will arrive in Mexico from China this weekend, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Wednesday.

Ebrard said in a Twitter post that the tests will arrive on the 11th of 20 planned flights between Shanghai and Mexico City to bring much-needed medical supplies.

He said in April that Mexico would buy US $56.6 million worth of supplies from China and met with Chinese ambassador to Mexico, Zhu Qingqiao, on Tuesday to thank him for his support in opening up the airbridge between the two countries and facilitating access to personal protective equipment, coronavirus testing kits and ventilators.

The additional tests will allow Mexico to ramp up testing as the government takes steps to reopen the economy even as the pandemic continues to worsen.

Only 142,204 people had been tested for Covid-19 in Mexico as of Tuesday, according to federal Health Ministry data, a figure that equates to just over 1,000 tests per 1 million inhabitants.

In contrast, Spain and Portugal have tested more than 50,000 people per 1 million inhabitants, Canada and the United States have tested more than 30,000 people per 1 million and Peru and Chile have tested more than 15,000.

Without widespread testing, many Covid-19 cases, especially mild or asymptomatic ones, will inevitably go undetected and the virus will continue to spread.

The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in March that testing, along with isolation and contact tracing, should be the “backbone” of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test,” he said.

Ebrard’s announcement that 300,000 tests will arrive soon comes a day after the president of the Business Coordinating Council, an influential business group, said that more tests need to be made available so that businesses in the manufacturing sector can be certain that Covid-19 won’t spread among employees.

Testing workers widely is essential to avoiding a severe second wave of infections, said Carlos Salazar Lomelín,

“We’re a country that has performed a very, very small quantity of tests. … We need the tests so that we have certainty that the workers entering workplaces are not infected,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Defining what’s essential in times of coronavirus is a challenge

By

Sarah DeVries

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May 13, 2020

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There's one bit of magic during the stress of coronavirus. The fireflies are back.

What counts as “essential?”

If there’s one thing that the coronavirus has taught us, it’s that there’s quite a variety of definitions out there — some more valid than others.

Places where people can buy food are, of course, essential. This means grocery stores and markets, but does it mean restaurants and cafés? Most would agree that it doesn’t, but at least in Xalapa, Veracruz, more than a handful have whistled and looked the other way while they remained open (but with face masks!)

And it’s not essential that they keep making food for delivery and take-out, but it is appreciated by this sushi-lover.

Hospitals are obviously essential, but what about regular doctors’ clinics? The settling of coronavirus like dust onto every part of our lives that the sun touches doesn’t erase other medical conditions that people might have had before then. My daughter is due a vaccine, but taking her into our local clinic seems unwise at best.

She could also stand a session with her kind and wise therapist, but an enclosed space with easily 1,000+ toys to handle also seems like too big a risk.

Dentists are mostly staying open, as they must. A tooth infection waits for no man.

And thank the gods that my dog’s veterinarian is still working: she had to be put to sleep last week. An unmasked friend helped me dig her grave and pack the earth in tight above her. For some things, you need to see faces.

Domestic violence cases are on the rise. Shall women die in their homes at the hands of their partners, or take their chances by going out and seeking another kind of shelter? I’d take my chances.

People are out of work. Should they definitely slow-motion die of all the problems that rapid-fire accumulate as a result of poverty, or take their chances with the coronavirus? I might take my chances there, too.

(Side note: if there’s anything that the coronavirus has made clear to me, it’s the need for a universal basic income, not just here, but in all countries. We could make the default for those earning above a certain amount to divert theirs to another collective fund, and leave them the option of “opting in” if they really, really, care deeply about the “fairness” of it. But anyway.)

Most parks have been closed off if it’s possible, but not all. We just don’t have the manpower to police the population in all possible public spaces. While two of the lakes have yellow caution tape “blocking” the entrances to the best of their abilities, the third lake is “open” because it’s just not possible to prevent people from accessing it without preventing access to the neighborhood in general.

How about the courts? I have some important things to take care of there, but they will have to wait in legal limbo in the meantime. A good friend — whose whole reason for being here is to arrive at his court-supervised visitations on Wednesdays and Saturdays — hasn’t seen his kids in over two months.

In even less-essential desires, I want to give this city a makeover, leave it positively drenched in murals, work to get some decent asphalt in for once so that new potholes don’t appear with every rainfall. Will it ever happen?

Yesterday, my 6-year-old daughter had a bit of a breakdown. She sobbed that she hated coronavirus, and that she missed her friends and going out. I cried too, because I miss all those things as well, and who can hold in their tears when their floppy outside heart is leaking pain?

The “stay inside” crowd (which I am loosely a part of) is adamant that we must respect Mother Nature’s ruthlessness, and I get it. If there’s any lesson to be extracted here, it’s that She doesn’t care about us: no matter how much we pretend we’re in control, we’re just not. Our institutions are delicate and dependent upon things we don’t control to continue working. And honestly, that’s OK: it feels like cosmic justice.

But damn. When you live alone most of the time like I do, it’s rough. People were built for people, and once in a while, that’s our downfall. It just is. We don’t get to control things even though we pretend we do, and relatively small catastrophes can send our whole pathetic little system spinning.

It’s quite easy to be preachy about staying indoors when we live with other people, especially other people that we (mostly, usually) like. When that’s not the case, sooner or later we’ll have to weigh the risk to our physical health against the very real risk of isolation-induced mental and emotional instability.

So where’s the magic in all this?

Well, fireflies are back, for one. Also really appreciating the humans in your life without the distraction of the mall is on the rise for sure.

Hold the ones you can close, and try not to judge those fleeting meetings too harshly. Emergencies don’t cease to make us human.

Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.

In a month and a half, 753,000 formal sector jobs lost due to coronavirus

By

MND Staff

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May 13, 2020

0

Unemployed waiters ask for economic support with a protest in Mexico City.

The coronavirus crisis has dealt a heavy blow to employment: Mexico shed more than 750,000 jobs in a period of just one and a half months between the middle of March and the end of April.

According to data from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), 198,033 formal sector jobs were lost between March 13 and 31 and a record 555,247 disappeared in April. All told, 753,280 people lost their jobs in the seven-week period.

The loss of jobs last month was nine times greater than in April 2009 when the swine flu pandemic was in full swing and just over 60,000 people were laid off.

Almost 106,000 jobs were lost in Mexico City last month, Nuevo León shed 53,000 and 45,000 disappeared in Quintana Roo. Between 20,000 and 40,000 jobs were lost in seven states: Jalisco, México state, Guanajuato, Baja California, Veracruz, Sinaloa and Querétaro.

Data also shows that 2.2% fewer formal sector workers are registered with IMSS than a year ago, the biggest annual decline since 2009. States that are heavily dependent on tourism recorded the biggest year-over-year employment declines.

Formal sector jobs fell by 18.1% in Quintana Roo, 10.8% in Baja California Sur and 6.3% in Guerrero. Only six of Mexico’s 32 states – Tabasco, Campeche, Michoacán, Colima, Chiapas and Aguascalientes – recorded employment increases in the year to the end of April.

The construction and mining sectors have recorded the biggest job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, IMSS data shows, but both were declared essential on Tuesday, meaning that workers who were laid off could be soon rehired.

In addition to the job losses, IMSS reported that the number of companies on its books decreased by almost 7,000 in April compared to the month before.

Analysts at Banorte said in a note that most businesses “probably suspended work or closed completely” due to the coronavirus pandemic and consequent economic downturn.

David Kaplan, a senior labor market specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, said it is likely that there will be more job losses this month but predicted that the number won’t be as high as in April.

Jesuswaldo Martínez, a researcher at the Senate’s Belisario Domínguez Institute, said that further job losses in May are inevitable but he too predicted that they won’t be as high as those seen last month.

By the end of the year, about 1 million people registered with IMSS will have lost their jobs, he said, predicting that if GDP falls by more than 7% this year, the hit to employment will be even greater.

“The International Monetary Fund says there could be 1.5 million [job losses], including people in the informal sector,” Martínez said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)