It’s back to high-risk Covid orange in Quintana Roo despite over 170,000 vaccinations statewide. The number of cases in the Cancún area rose 14%.
Quintana Roo regressed on Monday to high-risk orange from medium risk yellow on the state government’s coronavirus stoplight map as case numbers increase in the resort city of Cancún.
The state had already reverted to orange on the federal stoplight map a week ago. The Quintana Roo government has its own stoplight system to guide the reopening of the state economy.
Governor Carlos Joaquín said the orange-light restrictions will remain in effect until at least Sunday.
As of Monday, hotels, restaurants, archaeological sites, theme parks and public transit are permitted to operate at 50% capacity while beaches, public parks, cinemas, theaters, shopping centers, department stores, casinos, places of worship, hair and beauty salons and factories are all limited to 30% capacity. Bars, cantinas and nightclubs must close during the orange-light period.
Authorities will seek to ramp up Covid-19 testing this week and roll out vaccines in areas where they are most needed. The state government will also complete deep cleaning of public spaces and carry out patrols to ensure that citizens are complying with health protocols such as social distancing and the wearing of face masks.
The state government made the decision to switch to orange even though several municipalities, including Isla Mujeres, Puerto Morelos and Lázaro Cárdenas, didn’t record any new coronavirus cases during the past week.
However, new cases increased 14% in the municipality of Benito Juárez, which includes Cancún. Quintana Roo recorded 556 new infections between April 26 and May 2, pushing the accumulated case tally to 23,381. There are an estimated 705 active cases, while the official Covid-19 death toll is 2,623.
Joaquín said that hospital occupancy levels are not currently a concern because they are below 20% both in the northern and southern regions. However, he warned that the situation could change quickly if case numbers continue to rise.
According to state government data, 19% of hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients are currently occupied in Benito Juárez (Cancún) and Solidaridad, which includes Playa del Carmen. The occupancy level is 5% in Othón P. Blanco, which includes state capital Chetumal, and 2% in Tulum. The hospital occupancy rate in the state’s seven other municipalities is 0%.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to almost 2.35 million on Sunday with 1,093 new cases recorded. It was the lowest daily case tally since April last year. The official Covid-19 death toll rose to 217,233 with 65 additional fatalities reported, also the lowest daily total since April 2020.
The national hospital occupancy rate is 11% for general care beds and 16% for those with ventilators. As of Sunday night, just over 18.3 million vaccine doses had been administered in Mexico, a figure that represents 14 shots per 100 people.
Modernizing the fleet from interceptors to immediate response vessels is seen as being of 'vital importance.'
The navy has requested more than 1 billion pesos (US $49 million) to build 30 high speed immediate response vessels to combat threats in Mexican waters.
The new fleet would tackle illegal fishing, narco trafficking, arms and explosives trafficking, piracy and terrorism and would help protect state economic assets.
The navy has 72 boats for domestic vigilance missions, some of which have ended their service period according to international regulations. Their Polaris I interceptors have been in service since 1999.
Modernizing the fleet from interceptors to immediate response vessels is of “vital importance,” the navy said.
“We require 30 new immediate response vessels, as these have the necessary qualities: high speed and perfect maneuverability in shallow waters, which are ideal for undertaking chase and intercept operations,” it added.
“This type of boat will allow us to increase the capacity to respond to potential threats in strategic zones to intercept, identify, and in certain cases, destroy whatever target impinges on the interests of the navy,” said a cost efficiency study.
The vessels will also provide early alerts to ocean patrols that safeguard 55 strategic facilities belonging to Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission.
Other benefits include naval training for national and international defense, protection and logistic support for merchant and naval vessels and job creation during construction.
The navy envisages a financing cycle requiring 337 million pesos each year until 2023.
Amate paper painting by unknown artist. Travel By Mexico
Most visitors to Mexico have likely seen the popular and affordable Mexican souvenir of bright paintings on a dark-brown, rustic paper. These look like something that has been done for centuries, but in reality they are the result of a recent merger of two separate indigenous handcraft traditions.
The bright painting is done by the Nahua peoples, who inhabit the Balsas River area in the state of Guerrero. Originally, these images were used to decorate traditional pottery, but they were transferred to the new paper medium.
Meanwhile, the paper is made by an Otomí population centered in the tiny village of San Pablito, part of the Pahuatlan municipality in the Sierra Norte mountains of Puebla.
Both peoples live in highly isolated areas that have managed to keep many of their traditions. So how did the two even find out about each other’s work?
Tourism may drive most of the demand for handcrafts today, but their importance in Mexico arose after the Revolution as part of a national identity (mexicanidad) promoted by the government. This created a market for handcrafts in Mexico City, which just happens to be between the territories of the two communities.
Painting on amate paper by Nahua artist Marsiano Vargas at the Museo de las Culturas Populares in Mexico City. Karen Elwell (Flickr)
Essentially, each learned about the other at the market.
Sometime before the 1970s, someone got the brilliant idea of painting the Nahua pottery designs onto the Otomí paper.
For the Nahua, this has a number of important advantages: the painted motifs account for most of the pottery’s value. A flat surface is easier and quicker to paint on. Perhaps most importantly, paper is much easier to transport to market and easier for buyers to take home.
The Nahuas’ interest in the paper was that it gave the paintings a historical and traditional look, something that is extremely important in handcrafts and indigenous products. For the Otomí, their Nahua buyers provided something they needed, bulk purchasers that made commercial paper production economically viable.
Sounds like a win all around … but not quite.
Producing the paintings and the paper that they are on has become economically crucial for both groups, even vital. Because of cost, the paintings themselves are done with commercial acrylics, which pushed out traditional paints and pigments long ago.
Amate paper drying in the sun in San Pablito, Puebla. Luis Fernando Orozco Madero Wikimedia Commons
But the real issue comes with the paper, called amate.
In the pre-Hispanic period, it was extremely important, not only for documentation but also for religious ceremonies. This religious importance led the Spanish to abolish its making, with only a few, highly isolated communities such as the Otomí in the Sierra Norte able to continue making and using it in secret.
This preserved the technique of taking the inner bark from various types of ficus family trees and pounding them together to make sheets. Unfortunately, the commercialization of these sheets has decimated the trees that produce the bark.
The ficuses that produced the lightest and most prized paper were wiped out about 40 years ago, followed by just about the rest of the family of trees, according to handcraft expert and author Marta Turok. Any naturally light amate paper made today from ficus is from bark brought from Central America.
As tropical ficus trees in that part of the world grow slowly and with some difficulty, most of the bark used today comes instead from an entirely different species, Trema micrantha (locally called jonote). It accounts for about 80% of the bark pounded in San Pablito.
This tree grows fast and has a wide range, from Florida to Argentina. In Mexico, it grows in poor soils and is prevalent in the east of the country. It is often used as a shade tree on coffee plantations in Puebla. In fact, most of the harvested bark is from such coffee plantations.
San Pueblito Otomi amate paper art at the Feria Maestros del Arte in Chapala, Jalisco. These works are more profitable for the Otomí than selling blank paper.
Paper makers used to get this jonote bark themselves from the surrounding area, but at this point in time, the local ecosystem has long been stripped. Instead, amate paper makers rely on jonoteros, who have to bring bark to this isolated Otomí mountainside village from ever farther away.
There is some interest in cultivating jonotes for their bark, but this requires some training. There is also concern that growers would put in the two to five years needed for harvestable trees only to have the bark stolen.
There is one other problem with the jonote bark: it is tougher than ficus bark and requires caustic soda to soften it and chlorine to lighten it. (Worse chemical dyes are used to create all kinds of colored paper.) The use of these substances has caused serious problems in the small valley’s watershed.
Ecologically, the easy answer would be for the Nahuas or someone else to find a substitute for the amate paper that would give the “timeless” look that bark paper does. But then this would pull the rug out from under the Otomís’ only source of outside income. It may happen anyway sooner or later, as the difficulties of producing the paper drive up prices beyond what the Nahua can pay.
The tough question for outsiders is “Should I buy the amate paper paintings?” There is no easy answer.
Perhaps the least benign market is the largest one — the market for making blank sheets — as it uses up the most resources with the least economic benefit for the Otomí. There has been some shift in San Pablito to making amate paper decorative works, usually with light-dark contrast. This still means the use of chemicals, but the result is a finished product that brings in more money.
Several universities and others are still trying to find ways to make the paper production more economically and ecologically viable. As for the Nahua, they still make pottery, much of which is quite exquisite but less profitable.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
At Campamento Tortuguero Ayotlcali's summer camps, children interact with the refuge's turtles. Educators hope to promote lifelong interest in the animals.
One of the most eco-conscious organizations in the Zihuatanejo area is the Campamento Tortuguero Ayotlcali, founded in 2011 by Gene and Damaris Marin-Smith for the preservation of three endangered species of marine turtles.
Specifically, these species that nest in the area of Playa Larga, Playa Blanca and Barra de Potosí are olive ridley, black turtle and the largest marine turtle in the world, the leatherback (dermochelys coriacea).
Turtles, like all creatures, have many natural predators, but perhaps the most dangerous of all is man.
For this reason, locals, national and international volunteers begin their patrols in the rainy season to build corrals and incubators for the turtles along the beaches. Nightly and in shifts of two, these dedicated volunteers patrol the 15 kilometers of coast on ATVs in search of sea turtle tracks, an indication of nesting activity. They plan in the near future to allow interested tourists the opportunity to ride along and experience a patrol for a cost of US $25 per person.
The patrols give the turtles a better chance of survival as currently only about one out of 1,000 survive. Volunteers collect data on how many eggs and even turtles themselves have been stolen by poachers. Last year, for example, 13 turtles were recorded missing in this way. If you figure that the average turtle lays 13,000 eggs each year for 25 years, one turtle gone missing equates to over 325,000 hatchlings not born.
The volunteers move the eggs from the nest and carefully record the data for future use. This data includes species, coordinates, time and number of eggs, among other details. The tracking is an invaluable source of information for future reports.
Damaris Marin-Smith teaches a class on marine preservation.
If a nesting female is present, a pair of tags are attached to the front two flippers in order to track returning females and their frequency.
Once the hatchlings emerge in 45–70 days, depending on species and temperature, they are immediately released a few meters from the ocean. In this way, the hatchlings memorize the sand they were born on and later return to the same beach where they hatched.
The center also has several educational programs in place that reach not only the local level but also the state and the world beyond. As former educators, the Marin-Smiths and their volunteers count on these programs to create the awareness needed to ensure the turtles’ survival.
One of these programs is their annual summer camp, which will run this summer starting in July. The Guerreros del Arcoiris (Warriors of the Rainbow) program, geared for children aged 7–12, integrates reading, writing, math, sciences and fine arts, as well as hands-on activities in environmental issues affecting the children’s community.
This program would not work without the collaboration of many, including expats who over the years have provided time and money and, of course, locals who volunteer one or two nights a week.
The center also held a popular Earth Day commemoration on April 22. Scores of children and volunteers from local communities gathered to learn, create art, and brainstorm ideas on how to encourage the world to be more environmentally conscious. In particular, the discussions included topics around the turtles, pollution in the ocean and ways to combat it and the preservation of marine life.
Nearly every day during the season, visitors can sign up to watch the center release turtle hatchlings a few meters from the ocean.
The center also hosts short-term volunteer opportunities for people both from Mexico and countries around the world. Volunteers can be housed onsite if need be, sometimes for a nominal fee to offset the cost.
There is also an Adopt-A-Nest program where for $50, you receive GPS coordinates to track your nest as well as the names of the volunteers that found it, plus updates on the number of hatchlings. If possible, they will even send you pictures of the animals’ release. Due to high demand and the limited number of nests, you may share the nest adoption with other people.
Campamento Tortuguero Ayotlcali works with other organizations like the local and equally known Whales Of Guerrero, headquartered in Barra de Potosí, and Salvemos de las Isla Ixtapa, which preserves the Hawksbill sea turtle, which lays its eggs on Ixtapa Island. They are also members of the Red Laud OPO, an international organization that focuses on the protection of leatherbacks along the eastern Pacific.
The organization also has other connections, receiving grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the State of the World Sea Turtles organization Fundación Ecológica Biomar, which funds several activities and essential materials.
During the season the camp is open to visitors to watch the release of hatchlings at 5 p.m. nearly every day. Reservations are required.
Deputy Huerta claims the accusations of assault are false.
The National Immigration Institute (INM) has put out a travel alert for Morena party legislator and sexual assault suspect Saúl Huerta. The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office requested the alert, which will record any attempt by the federal deputy to leave the country.
Huerta was arrested on April 21 for the assault of a 15-year-old boy in a Mexico City hotel, but released due to his immunity as a lawmaker. Soon after, another accusation of sexual assault came to light. A 20-year-old man said April 23 that Huerta assaulted him three years ago in the state of Puebla.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office said on Friday it had found chemical evidence that the 15-year-old had been drugged and sexually abused.
Attorney General Ernestina Godoy confirmed that there are at least two accusations against Huerta, and one young man and his family are under federal protection.
A lawyer for the parents of the 15-year-old said this week that the boy was undergoing treatment in a psychiatric hospital for anxiety and depression. He also said the victim and his family have received threatening phone calls.
Huerta himself appeared this week for the first time since he was accused. He claimed in an interview that he was the victim of a campaign of defamation on the part of “the mafia of power,” a term that President López Obrador uses to describe those who held power in previous governments.
Meanwhile, Huerta’s colleagues in Congress are expected to discuss the removal of his lawmaker’s immunity this month or next despite an attempt by the Morena party to have it delayed until September.
Morena candidate Evelyn Salgado in 2021 with her father, who was disqualified from running.
A surprise candidate for governor of Guerrero — and daughter of the candidate who was disqualified by election authorities — has won the nomination to represent the Morena party on June 6.
Evelyn Salgado, daughter of Senator Félix Salgado, earned the most points in a survey of party members, according to Morena’s national director, Mario Delgado.
Salgado, 39, was the preferred candidate among 37.9%. In second place was Nestora Salgado, also a Morena senator, with just 13.9%.
The latter had questioned the inclusion of Evelyn Salgado in the poll, echoing some other party members by warning that it had the appearance of nepotism.
Félix Salgado was disqualified by the National Electoral Institute (INE) from participating in the election after he failed to turn in an accounting of his pre-campaign expenses, as required by the law.
Evelyn Salgado and Morena party director Mario Delgado in a Twitter post announcing her nomination as candidate.
The would-be candidate, a former mayor of Acapulco who has been accused of rape by at least five women, launched a campaign against that decision, issuing threats against INE councilors and threatening to stop the elections in Guerrero if he was not permitted to run.
Salgado appealed the ruling before the Federal Electoral Tribunal but it referred the case back to the electoral institute, which stood by its initial decision. In the end the tribunal sided with the INE.
The latter ruling triggered a strong response from President López Obrador, who called the decision an “attack on democracy.”
The Morena party’s survey of its members in Guerrero revealed that 38% knew of Evelyn Salgado, while 30% recognized the name of her rival.
Evelyn Salgado insisted that her father would not be acting through her as governor.
“Félix Salgado will be my guide and counselor, but will not interfere in my government,” Evelyn Salgado said. “He has shaped my and my sisters’ values, one of which is transparency to the public.”
Evelyn Salgado was previously the head of the DIF family services agency in Acapulco when her father was mayor from 2005 until 2008. She was head of the Ministry of Women for a year starting in 2011 but left the post to seek election as a representative in the Guerrero state Congress.
A protest last July against the violence in Celaya, Guanajuato.
For the fourth consecutive year, Mexico has dominated a list of the most violent cities in the world but smaller towns have shot up in the rankings, reflecting new hotspots where criminal groups are fighting for control.
The most violent place in the world in 2020 was Celaya, a city of around half a million people in the central state of Guanajuato, according to the report by a Mexican non-governmental organization, the Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice.
The Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) have been battling around Celaya over control of oil theft, drug trafficking and other criminal economies.
A few years ago, Celaya wasn’t even on the list. But since 2018, it has shot up more than 30 places, with 699 killings in 2020, or a homicide rate of over 109 per 100,000 habitants.
The situation is similar in nearby Irapuato, also in Guanajuato, which has gone from newcomer to fifth-most violent city in the world, with 823 homicides last year.
El Marro was arrested in August 2020 but shocking acts of violence have not stopped.
Located only a few hours away from Celaya and Irapuato, the city of Uruapan has climbed to eighth in the rankings, with a homicide rate of over 72 per 100,000 habitants. It is the deadliest place in the state of Michoacán, which has seen regular clashes between the CJNG and about a dozen other criminal factions, all seeking control of key cocaine and fentanyl trafficking routes.
And the city of Zacatecas, in central Mexico, only appeared on the list in 2019 but broke into the top 15 most violent cities in 2020. This coincided with the CJNG invading 17 municipalities in Zacatecas state in April 2020 during the country’s first lockdown and clashing with the Sinaloa Cartel and other groups throughout the year.
Latin American and Caribbean cities made up the overwhelming majority of the list, claiming 46 of 50 spots. But notably, some of the most murderous cities of past years, such as Kingston, Jamaica, or Caracas, Venezuela, have dropped below smaller Mexican newcomers.
InSight Crime analysis
Bloodshed in Mexico has reached such a level that continued outbreaks of violence in individual, medium-sized cities can register on a global scale, due to larger cartels with a national presence facing smaller but entrenched adversaries.
In August 2019, InSight Crime reported that Irapuato, an important industrial and trade center in central Mexico, had become an unfortunate model for similar cities in the country. At the time, clashes between the CJNG and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel had already been raging since 2018.
The fighting is brutal but fragmented, having broken down into neighborhood- and street-level feuds that appear endless. With the fall of Yépez, his group began to internally fracture, with smaller groups claiming pieces of the illicit oil economy, leading to additional violence at the same time that the government was executing a plan to militarize the area.
Uruapan tells a different story as the climb in homicides there has been more sudden. While located in the western state of Michoacán, which has consistently been a patchwork of rival clans, Uruapan saw violence spike in late 2019 when the CJNG moved in and faced off against Cárteles Unidos. The latter is an alliance between members of Los Viagras and Cartel del Abuelo, two Michoacán-based groups that have teamed up to defend their control of drug trafficking routes.
Similarly, Zacatecas had actually seen homicides drop by 9% in 2019 before they spiked again in 2020 after the CJNG moved in.
Max Radwin is a writer at InsightCrime, a think tank dedicated to researching and reporting on organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Several cruise ships are among vessels anchored off La Paz.
Several cruise ships have anchored in the bay at La Paz, Baja California Sur, triggering concerns among many local citizens that the vessels are a threat to the environment.
About 200 people showed up to protest on the city’s boardwalk on Friday afternoon to demand that the port administration and environmental authorities intervene to protect the bay from pollution.
“We are not a parking lot,” read the signs of some demonstrators, who claim that black, sooty stains found on beaches in the area were caused by the ships, which are not currently operating due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Collective of Southern Baja California Academics (CAS) and the Center for Renewable Energy and Environmental Quality (CERCA), the cruise ships are polluting the air and water in the area, which is known for its pristine beaches and abundant marine life.
The groups added that the stationary ships are not contributing to the local economy and have increased concentrations of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulates, putting whale sharks, dolphins and other marine species at risk.
Friday’s protest in La Paz.
Tourist service providers also expressed concern about the ships and their effect on the local whale shark population.
Similarly, Nezahualpilli Tovar, the director of a group that provides whale shark tours, said that since the cruise ships arrived, whale shark sightings have been lower than ever seen before at this time of year.
“We are totally against the cruise ships anchored in the bay of La Paz and against the light and sound pollution in an area that is a refuge for whale sharks. It puts at risk the ecosystem and the livelihoods of those of us who are dedicated to the conservation of the species,” Tovar said. “Normally in April and May we can count on 10 to 15 [whale sharks] in the water. Today we have less than five,” making tours impossible.
Luis Manuel Vargas, another local tour operator, said there is no definitive evidence linking the cruise ships to the sooty pollution recently found on beaches but that given the high probability that they are linked, local authorities should take precautionary action.
Port director José López Soto says the ships are not polluting and they comply with environmental standards necessary to remain anchored in the bay. Protesters say there has been no information made public to support the claim.
Soccer fans in the municipality of Malinalco in the state of México prevented a medical helicopter from landing in a soccer field on Wednesday, delaying the transport of a newborn baby to hospital.
The helicopter, which had been sent to pick up a baby having trouble breathing, interrupted a soccer game as it sought to land in a field and kicked up a huge cloud of dust. Angry fans threw bottles, sticks and rocks at the Grupo Relámpago aircraft, forcing the pilot to leave.
As a result, the infant was not taken to the hospital until the next day, according to a social media announcement by Grupo Relámpago. The baby’s condition was not made public.
Restaurants in the capital can now stay open until 11:00 p.m. in outdoor dining areas and 10:00 p.m. in indoor ones.
Mexico City will remain high-risk orange on the coronavirus stoplight map for a 12th consecutive week between May 3 and 9 even though the hospital occupancy level continues to trend downward.
City government official Eduardo Clark said the capital is close to switching to medium-risk yellow but the change won’t occur on Monday as authorities previously suggested could happen.
Nevertheless, the government announced that opening hours for restaurants will extend until 11:00 p.m. in outdoor dining areas and 10:00 p.m. indoors. The maximum permitted capacity at restaurants will increase from 30% to 40% of normal levels.
Mexico City still has more than 8,000 estimated active coronavirus cases and recorded more than 1,100 new cases on Thursday, but the number of hospitalized Covid patients declined by 437 over the past week. There are currently just under 1,700 in Mexico City hospitals, for an occupancy level of 20%, Clark said.
There are almost 2,200 patients in hospitals in the greater metropolitan area, which includes numerous México state municipalities.
Clark said the percentage of Covid-19 tests in the capital that come back positive is also on the wane, currently hovering around 5%–7%.
Mexico City has recorded almost 640,000 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic, a figure that accounts for 27% of the country’s accumulated case tally, which currently stands at 2.34 million. The capital’s Covid-19 death toll is 41,836, or 19% of total fatalities in Mexico, which officially number 216,447.
Mexico City is currently one of six states painted orange on the federal government’s stoplight map, which took effect Monday and will remain in force until May 9. Twenty states are medium-risk yellow and six are low-risk green.
The national coronavirus situation has improved considerably this month, with both new cases and deaths declining compared to March. The vaccine rollout continues, but Mexico still has a long way to go to inoculate the entire adult population.
As of Thursday night, 17.35 million doses had been given, mainly to health workers and seniors. The government reported earlier this week that all of Mexico’s approximately 15 million seniors had had the opportunity to be vaccinated against Covid-19, but some 4 million decided not to get a shot.
However, it appears likely that many seniors could have missed their shots due to lack of communication.
A Mexico News Daily reader in Hermosillo, Sonora, said he and his wife registered on the vaccination website on February 6. The couple, as well as a neighbor, are still waiting to be contacted.
Vaccination of people in the 50-59 age bracket is scheduled to start next week.
