Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Crime rate down 32% in Guerrero, a major drop in the last 3 years

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The president and Navy Minister Ojeda in Acapulco today.
The president and Navy Minister Ojeda in Acapulco today.

Crime in Guerrero has seen an overall 32% decline so far in 2020, Navy Minister Rafael Ojeda Durán reported Friday. Murder is down 50% and kidnapping has plummeted 70% in the first half of 2020, he said.

The drop in numbers represents a significant accomplishment for Guerrero. In June 2017 the state had the second-highest crime rate in the nation, three years later it ranks at 20th. 

Guerrero comes in at 24th in the nation for car theft and robbery, and seventh for the number of murders. However, in extortion it ranks 14th, marking an upward trend.

Although public safety in Acapulco is improving, it remains a concern, being among the municipalities with the highest crime rate, along with Chilpancingo and Zihuatanejo.

Governor Héctor Astudillo Flores cited the creation of the National Guard and the certification and improvement of municipal and state police forces as factors for the decline in crime, as well as daily meetings by a working group for peace in the state.

Executive secretary of the National Public Security System, Leonel Cota Montaño, said that state police have improved their operational capacity, and local forces have benefited from the federal government’s Contribution Fund for Strengthening Municipalities (FORTAMUN) which helps improve and equip municipal police forces.

New crimefighting tools have also had an effect. State Attorney General Jorge Zuriel de los Santos Barrila reported that a ballistic fingerprint database has been created in coordination with the Ministry of National Defense, which will help identify weapons used to commit crimes. A federal vehicle recovery system has also been developed which allows citizens whose cars have been stolen to review and monitor their cases online. 

Authorities also pointed to the arrest earlier this week of two prominent cartel members as evidence of the state’s crackdown. 

José Ángel Galeana Palacios, alias “El Capuchino,” leader of the Acapulco Independent Cartel, has been charged with three murders that occurred in 2016, and his second in command, known as “El Negro Pipa,” was charged with the murder of political YouTube star Pamela Montenegro Real, known as “Nana Pelucas” or “Grandma Wigs,” in 2018.

Source: Reforma (sp), La Silla Rota (sp), Infobae (sp), El Sol de Puebla (sp)

BCS goes online with neighborhood breakdown of Covid-19 cases

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New Covid-19 banners in Baja California Sur.
New Covid-19 banners in Baja California Sur.

Baja California Sur (BCS) health officials have not only begun providing a neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown of coronavirus infections on the state’s website, but they are also hanging banners in neighborhoods experiencing outbreaks, warning residents to use extreme caution.

“This measure will provide additional information to citizens so that they can take precautions when leaving their home, especially in areas where there is a greater transmission of the coronavirus,” said Health Minister Víctor George Flores.

The placement of these banners has drawn controversy, El Universal reports. Residents have complained on social media that they are discriminatory actions and could have repercussions.

The added warnings come as cases continue to increase in the state. 

Yesterday, health authorities confirmed 151 new coronavirus cases, with 89 in La Paz, 34 in Los Cabos, seven in Comondú, six in Loreto and three in Mulegé, bringing the number of accumulated cases to  5,954. 

Seven people died yesterday, five in La Paz and two in Los Cabos, and the total number of deaths in the state is at 241. Health authorities say 133 patients have been discharged from hospitals and a total of 3,043 have recovered. 

Once again, BCS has the highest per capita rate of infections in Mexico with 137.42 confirmed cases per 1,000 residents. The next highest rate is in Coahuila, with 78.8 per 1,000

Twenty-two doctors arrived in La Paz from Querétaro and Mexico City this week to help treat coronavirus patients.

The state has 251 available hospital beds and 171 ventilators. Currently, 75 ventilators are in use.

Junk food ban proposed

Following the lead of Oaxaca, which banned the sale and distribution of junk food to minors earlier this month, the president of the congressional education commission, Esteban Ojeda Ramírez, told BCS Noticias that the Morena party intends to present a similar bill in September.

At least 10 other states in Mexico are considering junk food bans for minors as a way to curb Mexico’s epidemic of obesity and diabetes, which is especially prevalent in BCS.

“Baja California Sur is in first place for consumption of soft drinks and junk food and obesity and childhood diabetes rates are among the highest ranges in the country,” Ojeda said. 

Busted

In the month of July, 23 drug dealers were arrested and more than 12,200 doses of narcotics were seized in BCS. Of the drugs seized, 1o,888 doses were methamphetamine, and 1,378 were marijuana. Ten of those arrested were women, BCS Noticias reports.

Not arrested although publicly shamed, BCS Noticias reports, was a tourist identified only as Amanda who explained a controversial photo with a somewhat fishy backstory.  

Last week, Amanda posted to her Instagram account a shot of her at Balandra beach in La Paz, proudly holding a parrotfish she said she would be eating with portabello mushrooms. Of her 29,000 followers, some 800 “liked” the photo. 

Woman with her parrotfish—at a closed beach in a protected area.
Woman with her parrotfish—at a closed beach in a protected area.

However, Balandra, like all beaches in BCS except for those in Los Cabos, is closed. Also, Balandra bay was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005 and is a protected area that has been closed to fishing since 2012.

Shortly after she posted the photo, Amanda added a comment claiming she had actually caught the brightly colored, still glistening fish at a location some hours away and decided to travel to Balandra to snap the photo. 

Still not busted

Shortly after President López Obrador’s visit to Los Cabos last Friday, someone again opened San José del Cabo’s estuary to the sea over the weekend, draining it of fresh water and leaving rotting bodies of fish behind. 

Businesswoman and activist Blanca Pedrín, who has long fought to protect the estuary and other natural areas in Los Cabos, lamented that the estuary had once again been “raped, taken away by intentionally and deliberately emptying it; you can see how they deliberately opened the mouth of our estuary, opening furrows to empty it.”

Rafael Vázquez of Mexico United for its Beaches said that repeated requests to reinforce the sand bar that protects the estuary, a haven for birds and other wildlife species, and increase surveillance to prevent acts of vandalism have been met with deaf ears by the city council. 

Despite the installation of two thermal imaging cameras in July, the damage continues unchecked and no culprit has been identified.

The estuary, which has been a protected area since 1993, was one of the region’s first draws for foreign visitors centuries ago when Spanish galleons and pirate ships would stop to replenish their water supplies as they traveled the trade route between Mexico and the Philippines. It is also a source of water to farmers in the area and sits on a coveted parcel of beachfront property. 

Turtle time

August is the high season for sea turtle spawning off the coast of Los Cabos, and visitors and residents are reminded to respect the nests they lay on beaches. Manager of the Marine Turtle Protection Program, Graciela Tiburcio Pintos, said that more than 250 nests in Los Cabos and the Pacific coast have been penned off to protect the eggs. 

Tiburcio urges beachgoers to reduce their consumption of plastic, keep their dogs on a leash and refrain from driving along the beach. Often school children are invited to help release baby turtles and learn how to protect them from extinction, but the coronavirus may put a damper on that program for now, she said. 

Mexico News Daily

Bank acknowledges attempted cyberattack but denies data compromised

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The facade of a bank with a sign reading CIBanco
The U.S. accused CIBanco of providing financial services to Those cartels include the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Gulf Cartel. (File photo)

A United States cybersecurity firm has revealed that a cyber attack took place last week against a Mexican bank, although the bank says the attack was unsuccessful and no information was extracted.

Cyble, Inc. disclosed that CIBanco’s systems had been infected by REvil ransomware. The attackers had released some of the data collected but were threatening to sell the remainder, which purportedly included sensitive information about the bank’s employees and customer accounts and passwords, if a ransom payment were not made.

After customers noted an interruption in service and complained on social media of not having access to their accounts for six days last week, CIbanco released a statement on Monday saying that “we made the decision to suspend the bank’s services and applications preventively following security protocols.” The bank said the hack was not successful.

“The bank’s security protocols worked against massive and repetitive attacks. The operating systems were not compromised.”

Cyble posted a message appearing to be from the attackers on Twitter.

“People who don’t care about their reputation, lie to their clients, and are silent about hacking and data leak. Bank users lose money from their accounts, they cannot pay bills and loans, and the management continues to lie about ‘problems in the system. If you do not contact us, we will begin to publish your data.”

One account holder told Mexico News Daily last week that he had been unable to make transfers from his account for several days. He said the bank told him that it was having systems problems due to heavy rainfall.

The bank has 3,300 employees and assets of 12.24 billion pesos (US $557 million).

A recent study by cybersecurity firm Infosecurity reports that between February and April alone, cyber attacks on financial institutions worldwide have increased by 238%, with ransomware being the most popular method used.

“Ransomware groups used to simply encrypt their victims’ data, but since November last year they have also been stealing it. They use the threat of releasing or, in the case of REvil, auctioning off the stolen data as an additional lever to extort payment,” says Brett Callow, a threat analyst at New Zealand-based software firm Emsisoft.  

“And the most you can hope to receive is a pinky promise that the stolen data will be deleted, but why would criminals delete something that they can make money with?”

REvil ransomware software, also known as Sodinokibi, was first detected in 2019 and has stolen data from foreign exchange company Travelex and celebrity law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks whose clients include Lady Gaga, Drake and Madonna.

In June, operators of the REvil ransomware  launched a dark web auction site for data sets that mimics eBay, accepting bids in cybercurrency to ensure anonymity. Thus far their average extortion demand is around US $260,000, and they threaten failure to pay will result in auctioning off the data to the highest bidder.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp), La Silla Rota (sp), ZD Net (sp)

Maya communities struggle in wake of Tropical Storm Cristóbal 

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Lakes have formed in Hopelchen where before there were none.
Lakes have formed in Hopelchen where before there were none. Everardo Chablé Huehuet

On June 1, Tropical Storm Cristóbal made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing with it torrential rain that caused major flooding in dozens of Maya communities across the region. 

Settling over Campeche, Quintana Roo, and Yucatán state, the deluge destroyed crops and beehives, killed livestock, and forced people to evacuate.

Twenty-nine-year-old Everardo Chablé Huehuet – a representative of the Colectivo de Comunidades Mayas de los Chenes,  a group of beekeeping and agricultural communities in Campeche – told Mexico News Daily that his community had been badly affected by the flooding. 

 “When the storm started and the rains began, we didn’t know that it was going to be a catastrophe, like a hurricane. It was raining for a week but we couldn’t imagine that we were going to be inundated and have areas that formed like lakes,” he said. 

More than two months later and communities like Chablé’s are still struggling in the aftermath of this regional disaster.

The municipalities to receive the highest amount of rainfall in Campeche included Candelaria, Ciudad del Carmen, Calakmul, and Hopelchén, where Chablé lives.

Some 70% of people in the Hopelchén municipality make their living from beekeeping. They manage native stingless species and practice apiculture, the management of European honey bees.

Many people in Chablé’s town of Chan-Chen, which is a community of apiculturists more than 100 kilometers from the municipal capital of Hopelchén, lost their livelihoods.

“There are people who lost more than 100 hives, and there are people who lost 20. A large amount has been lost and it is so difficult to recover [the hives]. People have been working for years as beekeepers, for 20, 15, and 10 years they have worked, and then they lost their hives overnight,” he said.

The beekeeper explained that as the honey was due to be harvested, many people suddenly lost their income and are now struggling to pay for day-to-day expenses. 

Chablé noted that there are towns in other communities where as many as 600 beehives were destroyed. 

Flooded beehives in Campeche.
Flooded beehives in Campeche. Everardo Chablé Huehuet

In early June, a group of 71 civil society organizations and academics carried out a preliminary investigation across the peninsula for a damage assessment and needs analysis.

It found that 4,259 hives had been lost in Campeche; there were 14,748 before the storm.

Reliant upon growing traditional crops on small family plots known as milpas, Maya communities in Hopelchén also suffered a heavy loss of squash plants. 

Chablé explained that this loss was compounded by the fact that water ruined the communities’ corn harvest when it flooded the trojes, small traditional wooden structures used to store the corn. 

Communities in Quintana Roo have also suffered because of Cristóbal.

The damage report indicated that areas that were badly impacted included José María Morelos, portions of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Tulum, Puerto Morelos, Benito Juárez and Lázaro Cárdenas, and communities west of Bacalar. 

Isaí Castillo Hernández, 29, lives in the small rural community of David Gustavo Gutiérrez Ruiz, which is located about 50 kilometers west of Bacalar in the municipality of Othon P. Blanco. 

Castillo said: “I think what impacted us the most about this storm was the loss of our crops. There was serious damage. Many people who had crops such as corn, lemon, orange and other types of fruit trees lost absolutely everything.  

“My grandfather, for example, had a large cornfield but when the flood came everything went into the water. All was lost with the water. We tried to recover some orange plants but nothing could be done.

“Some people also lost animals, such as sheep and cows, chickens, pigs, and turkeys, on their ranches.”  

The access road to David Gustavo Gutiérrez Ruiz was washed away by the rains. Castillo explained that when a pregnant woman urgently needed medical care, the government had to send a helicopter to take her to hospital.

The community has received support from the government in the form of food packages, while in Hopelchén basic necessities and medicine have been handed out by civil society groups.

Aerial view of flooding in Hopelchen.
Aerial view of flooding in Hopelchen. Everardo Chablé Huehuet

According to the damage study, the situation facing Maya beekeeping and agricultural communities impacted by the floods is urgent because any savings or resources families had were exhausted by the coronavirus pandemic. When the assessment was carried out, at least 15% of families in those communities urgently needed food support.

In Gustavo Gutiérrez Ruiz, many people who were working in tourism and providing a much-needed income for their families had lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

Chablé also said that the situation is complicated by the Covid-19 crisis, with cases rising in Hopelchén.

“Infections are going up very fast. We are talking about a figure of 100 infected people here in Hopelchén, when at the beginning of the end of May there were only two. It is worrying for the communities because they do not have a working Covid-19 protocol,” he said.

He added that it was a concern for communities because they lack adequate information about the virus in their native Yucatec Maya language.

As well as being impacted by flooding and Covid-19, Maya communities in the peninsula are facing environmental threats, one of which might have worsened the effects of the flooding.

According to a 2015 study, Hopelchén is a major deforestation hotspot on the peninsula because of the recent expansion of commercial agriculture, particularly by Mennonite communities.  

Chablé suggested that the flooding was particularly severe as a result.

“We have never seen flooding like this before. Hurricane Isidoro happened 18 years ago here in Hopelchén and there were floods, but not like this. We are not talking about a hurricane, but about a storm that has impacted us with the force of a hurricane,” he said. 

For Chan-Chen, David Gustavo Gutiérrez Ruiz and other affected communities, recovery from the floods is likely to be slow. 

Castillo explained that until the water has fully receded, people in his community cannot return to their daily activities. 

Chablé said that in Hopelchén they are also waiting for the water to go down — it has only abated by a few centimeters due to the rainy season.

The beekeeper added that residents believe it could take up to a year for the water to recede completely.

Mexico News Daily

Possible hate crime seen in murder of LGBTQ rights activist

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Murder victim Santos.
Murder victim Santos.

The killing of a University of Guadalajara student who was found shot to death in Zapopan — the 16th student to suffer a violent death since 2014 — is now being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Police found the body of Jonathan Alberto Santos, 24, around 7 a.m. Tuesday on a street in the Balcones de la Cantera neighborhood. Jalisco prosecutors are gathering evidence to determine whether the murder was a hate crime against Santos, who was a member and activist of the LGBTQ community. 

Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solis said the authorities will also continue to pursue the possibility that it was a crime of passion or related to robbery.

The death has sparked calls among students at the university for solutions to violence in Guadalajara and for justice in Santos’s killing. 

A woman identifying herself as Santos’s cousin said her family was unaware of any previous incidents in which Santos was targeted for violence.

“Everywhere he went, he was accepted as he was,” she said.

A local campus student organization, the University Students Federation (FEU), has encouraged demonstrators to congregate Friday evening at the governor’s residence, Casa Jalisco.

“We will keep fighting to demand justice for each student, for each one of our rights, and for every freedom. We will not rest until there is justice,” the organization posted on Twitter.

On his personal Twitter account on the day of Santos’s death, FEU president Javier Armenta linked the killing to many other murders of students and young people.

“Yet again, one of our fellow students has been a victim of violence and insecurity … What more is needed to stop these losses?”

In addition to the 16 students murdered in the last six years, another eight have disappeared.

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

Former Gulf Cartel boss in Reynosa gets 28 years

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El Barbas at his arrest in 2007.
El Barbas at his arrest in 2007.

A federal judge has sentenced the ex-leader of the Reynosa, Tamaulipas, wing of the Gulf Cartel to 28 years in prison for organized crime and possession of illegal weapons.

At the height of his power, Juan Óscar “El Barbas” Garza Azuarato was considered one of the principal drug traffickers between Reynosa and McAllen, Texas. His crime cell was also involved in human trafficking in collaboration with other criminal organizations in Chiapas and Tabasco, weapons sales and extortion of Reynosa businesses.

According to a U.S. Senate report from 2011 on drug trafficking organizations in Mexico, the Gulf Cartel is one of the oldest cartels in Mexico and was the most powerful crime gang when former president Felipe Calderón began his war on drug cartels in 2006 and used the military to capture or kill 25 of the 37 most wanted drug lords in Mexico.   

Garza was also fined 315,026 pesos (US $14,310).

It was the second time Garza has been sentenced. He was sentenced to prison in 2010, but an appeals court overturned that decision and ordered a new trial, which resulted in the new, 28-year sentence.

Source: El Universal (sp)

July the worst month yet for new coronavirus cases; total now over 500,000

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Virus transmission has intensified since the end of lockdown.
Virus transmission has intensified since the end of lockdown.

July was Mexico’s worst month yet for new cases of the coronavirus with an average of 6,404 reported every day.

El Universal reported that 198,548 new infections occurred in July, the equivalent of 266 people testing positive for Covid-19 every hour. 

Case numbers set new daily records on four days during the month. On July 18, 7,615 new cases were reported followed by 8,438 on July 23. July 30 saw numbers surge by 7,730, and on July 31 there were 8,458 new cases. 

The Ministry of Health said the surges in cases were due to the way information was uploaded to government platforms and didn’t reflect the actual number of new cases recorded each day.

So far August case numbers are slightly below those of July. During the first 13 days, 81,114 new infections were recorded with a record-breaking 9,556 occurring on August 1 alone. The daily average has been 6,239, a couple of hundred below July’s figures.

Coronavirus cases as of Thursday.
Coronavirus cases as of Thursday. milenio

Several experts say the spike in numbers over the past two months is a consequence of the easing of stay-at-home measures that occurred in mid-June.

For Malaquías López Cervantes of the National Autonomous University’s (UNAM) faculty of medicine, the correlation between the end of lockdown and a surge in cases in deaths is logical. The country, he says, was simply reopened too early.

“The population took few precautions because they were given poor instructions, masks were ignored and it was said that they should leave their homes without fear,” he said. “There are consequences. Transmission has intensified.”

López says the government chose the recovery of the economy over recovery from the pandemic. 

“I think the economy has been favored and the importance of health has been neglected, and that is leading to very bad results.”

Because some improvement has been seen in Mexico City and some other locations, he said, it is assumed that the situation is easing, which is not the case.

The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths
The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio

“Infections are moving to other places perhaps [because] they have less geopolitical visibility.”

Alejandro Macías, a member of UNAM’s coronavirus commission and a frequent critic of the federal government’s coronavirus strategy, agrees that high infection rates are spreading to other regions of the country with similar intensity to the virus’s initial growth in Mexico City.

“Now that Monterrey, Guadalajara, parts of the Bajío and other cities are added, the epidemic will come to the entire republic,” he said

Rodolfo de la Torre, director of social development at the Espinosa Yglesias think tank, observed that the handling of the pandemic has strayed from its original goal, and the federal government should reconsider its strategy.

“It seems that the objective was lost, which was to reduce infections and deaths. The authorities underestimated the population’s vulnerability to infection and death,” he says. Mexico’s health system was weak from the onset, testing has been inadequate and the use of masks has not been emphasized enough. 

UNAM’s López took Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell to task for not making masks mandatory.

“The deputy minister talks about not forcing Mexicans to wear face masks, but I think that more pressure should be put on the population. What [he] says is silly, because it seems that he defends the right to infect,” he said. “In an extraordinary situation rights have to be adapted to protect the population as much as possible.”

López-Gatell criticized lawmakers in Colima this week for proposing stiff punishments for not wearing a face mask, warning that such measures could lead to human rights abuses by authorities and social tension among citizens.

There were 7,371 new cases reported on Thursday, bringing the total to 505,751. The day’s death tally was 627; the accumulated total is now 55,293.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Weddings on the sly violate coronavirus restrictions

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A wedding in Guanajuato where few coronavirus prevention measures were being observed.
A wedding in Guanajuato where few coronavirus prevention measures were being observed.

Morelos is currently orange on the national risk level stoplight map but one wouldn’t know it for all the secret weddings and other events going on in the city of Jiutepec in violation of the state’s social distancing regulations.

According to the newspaper Milenio, large social gatherings are going on repeatedly in the municipality and authorities have given up trying to shut them down.

One such event was an outdoor wedding involving about 150 people last Saturday.

In video footage, wedding guests are crowded together, drinking and dancing to live music and few are wearing face masks. Milenio said organizers did not take participants’ temperature to check for signs of Covid-19 infection and that attempts to call 911 and have authorities attend were ignored.

The report also claimed that 911 services have given up responding to such calls in the face of so many social events going on.

Party venues and musical groups are quietly offering their services despite pandemic restrictions, which will only be eased once the state moves to yellow on the coronavirus risk map.

Owners of event facilities admitted to advertising for customers despite the regulations. 

Jiutepec officials later told Milenio that local Civil Protection head Francisco Javier Barona Téllez went to check on Saturday’s wedding but was not successful in shutting it down. 

Meanwhile, a wedding in Guanajuato, also on Saturday, cost the facility in which it was held a fine of 25,000 pesos (US $1,135). Officials were alerted to a party at the Centro Fox, a facility in San Francisco del Rincón operated by former president Vicente Fox and his wife.

They found that coronavirus protocols were not being observed.

Sources: Milenio (sp)

As stealing fuel becomes more difficult, thieves turn to train robbery

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Train robbers at work.
Train robbers at work.
With the government having clamped down on fuel theft, criminals in Guanajuato and Querétaro are increasingly turning to freight trains.

Last year an average of two railcars were robbed each week, but in the first six months of 2020 that number has increased to three per day, the newspaper Reforma reports. 

The shift in targets is likely due to the pressure inflicted on the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, notorious for fuel theft in the area. Its leader, José Antonio Yépez Ortiz, alias El Marro, was arrested on August 2 on charges of kidnapping, organized crime and fuel theft after an 18-month manhunt.

Freight companies and cargo transportation experts have identified hot spots for train robberies in Mexico’s Bajío central lowlands region: El Ahorcado in Querétaro and Empalme Escobedo and Apaseo El Alto and Apaseo El Grande in Guanajuato. 

The exact number of train robberies that have occurred is unknown, as many go unreported, said security expert Marcos Solórzano Cataño, and the problem is not likely to go away anytime soon. Fuel thieves have the infrastructure and the protection of local residents already in place, making the transition from gas to cargo relatively easy.

Solórzano said thieves mainly target train cars carrying auto parts, grains, seeds, consumer goods and construction material. 

Nationally, the number of train robberies has been declining. In 2016, 9,042 train robberies were reported whereas the first three months of 2020 have seen just 1,306. 

The majority of train robberies occur in Puebla, Veracruz and Tlaxcala, government officials say. 

Source: Reforma (sp), Excélsior (sp)

Coping with Covid-19: survivor creates a ‘common sense’ guide

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Jorge Camacho has written the book on coronavirus survival.
Jorge Camacho has written the book on coronavirus survival.

Looking for a common sense guide to surviving a coronavirus diagnosis without going to the hospital? Meet Jorge Camacho Treviño, a man who wrote the book on it. 

In an interview with news agency EFE, the Mexican engineer and teacher pointed out that his 11-step guide to navigating the disease was born out of his desire to fight the coronavirus from home. 

Camacho is 50. He has high blood pressure, diabetes and is overweight, factors he knew put him at high risk for complications. He is also on a fixed income and worried his treatment might drain his bank account.

But he was determined to recover. So this admitted fan of survival stories about those who have conquered adversity decided to write his own.

With Mexico poised to surpass 500,000 cases, and after more than 56,000 people have died, Camacho hopes his guide will help others defeat the disease.

Camacho's virus survival guide.
Camacho’s virus survival guide.

The document (in Spanish) is available as a free download on the Facebook page “Camacho vs Covead.” 

“Every Mexican who has my guide in his hands and follows the 11 steps is very likely to succeed and spend less money than in a hospital,” he said.

The measures Camacho proposes are:

  1. Remain in regular contact with family members and the doctor. This helps keep the patient calm and puts the body in optimal condition to fight the virus.
  2. Obtain medical equipment to measure body temperature, blood oxygen levels and blood pressure. 
  3.  Keep a precise record of symptoms by day and time and also make a note of all vital signs. This will help you track the progress of the disease and whether it is safe to remain at home. 
  4. If your blood oxygen level drops below 90%, lie on your stomach and measure it again after 30 minutes when it is likely you will obtain a normal reading. Stay in bed as much as possible, and sleep on your stomach.
  5. Stay home as much as possible and wear a mask at all times to avoid infecting family members. Designate just one person to help you with meals and medicine, and always maintain sanitary measures and keep at a safe distance.
  6. There is no reason why you should not receive the best medical care available because your symptoms will be complicated. If you can’t afford to pay for your care, ask a relative for help. (Camacho estimates his treatment cost him 25,000 pesos, or US $1,125.)
  7. Whether you meet with your doctor in his or her office or via Zoom, WhatsApp or FaceTime, describe all of your symptoms in detail including the day, time, intensity and frequency.
  8. Eat healthily and make sure you get a lot of green vegetables and citrus fruits. Take vitamins if you have a loss of appetite as this can help boost your immune system. Keep up to date with new information on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy.
  9. Quit drinking soda. Drink water and electrolyte solutions instead. 
  10. If you lose your appetite, eat canned foods, powdered smoothies or your favorite nutritional drinks such as Ensure or Glucerna.
  11. Get all the lab and medical tests needed to provide your doctor with the information they need. 

Camacho cautions that people can be unknowing carriers of the disease, as he tested negative for the coronavirus several times before the results came back positive. He also recommended that patients keep their minds occupied and avoid thinking negative thoughts. 

Forty-two days after he first started showing symptoms, Camacho still struggles with consequences of the disease, including muscle fatigue and a persistent cough, but he is coronavirus free. 

So far, his guide has been shared more than 1,200 times. “Thank you very much for taking the time to share information that can help someone else and for thinking about all people,” wrote one grateful Facebook user. “I wish you to recover 100% of your health and that you can serve as an example and inspiration to many people who need a light of hope in these times.”

Source: Forbes (sp), Infobae (sp), EFE (sp)