Francisco Gurría prepares breakfast for healthcare workers.
A group of friends in Mexico City has banded together to prepare breakfasts for busy health workers treating coronavirus patients in the capital’s south.
Over the past two weeks, Francisco Gurría and several of his friends have prepared more than 1,200 breakfasts – egg sandwiches, juice and fruit – for medical personnel at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INER), the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition and the Manuel Gea González General Hospital.
They distribute the meals to the health workers on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays while they dedicate themselves on the other days of the week to sourcing the products they require to keep their charitable initiative going.
The friends have been accepting donations of products such as eggs, bread, fruit and vegetables from people who have contacted them via their Instagram account Gracias Personal Médico (Thanks Medical Personnel).
“We want to contribute a little bit to the medical personnel because they’re doing a great job for everyone; they treat everyone even though their salaries may be low or people might attack them when they see them,” said Gurría, a veterinarian who has seen a drop-off in clients since the beginning of the national social distancing initiative in late March.
One of Gurría’s friends prepares breakfasts for delivery.
Martha Medina, another member of the team of friends who get together to prepare the breakfasts, told the newspaper El Universal that she was motivated to do something to help health workers after hearing about the attacks to which some doctors and nurses have been subjected.
“It’s extremely sad that there are people who want to harm them … when they are the ones who are exposing themselves [to the risk of infection] in this … outbreak,” she said.
“A day has many hours and we’re going to make use of our time showing solidarity with those who are risking their lives for us,” Medina added.
She called on the public to keep sending food donations so that they can continue to support health workers on the frontline of the coronavirus battle.
The friends don’t yet know how long they will continue to prepare the meals – they won’t have as much free time after the end of the emergency period – but stress that they will continue to make as many as they can for the time being.
Their work and goodwill is certainly appreciated by the health workers at the three hospitals in the southern borough of Tlalpan.
“We’re working a lot here. It’s been very hard every day since the epidemic started in the country. These kinds of deeds make us feel like we’re supported,” said a doctor at INER.
“Doctors are very obsessive with our work, we don’t leave [the hospital] … because the care of these [Covid-19] patients is very demanding. Whenever there is a measure of this kind, we feel good.”
Mexico’s customs chief has quit his post less than a year after President López Obrador gave him the responsibility of cleaning up corruption in the department.
López Obrador confirmed on Friday morning that Ricardo Ahued had tendered his resignation and would be returning to the upper house of Congress as a senator for Veracruz with the ruling Morena party.
“He told me he wants to be in the Senate,” the president said. “Ricardo Ahued is a man of integrity, a good person, an honest man,” he said.
Despite his kind words for the outgoing administrator, López Obrador conceded that he hadn’t been successful in stamping out corruption in customs, a department that has been plagued with problems of that nature.
Ahued became customs chief last June and two months later met with the president in the National Palace, where he was explicitly instructed to eliminate corruption at the nation’s airports, ports and border crossings.
López Obrador admitted today, however, that the job is still “outstanding.”
“Is the problem very big?” a reporter asked.
“Yes, it’s like the homicide problem [but] … we’re going to keep moving forward, providing an example that there is no corruption, impunity, conspiracy between crime and authorities,” López Obrador said.
“In the case of customs, a [new] cleansing is coming, … attempts have been made [to eliminate corruption] but it’s a monster, … a 100-headed one.”
For his part, Ahued said that his decision to vacate his customs role at the end of the month was a personal one.
He said that he was leaving the position with his head held high and that he was determined to fulfill his responsibility of representing the people of Veracruz in the Senate.
Under his leadership, customs authorities identified three cargo airlines last August that were believed to be bringing pirated goods into the country via the Mexico City International Airport. The newspaper El Universal reported the same month that complicity between several criminal groups and corrupt customs employees at the airport had facilitated the illegal import of weapons, drugs and counterfeit goods.
According to the Defense Ministry, “the corruption problem at customs offices fosters organized crime activities such as the smuggling of arms, drugs, chemical precursors, cash and goods in general.”
Typical Day of the Dead altar featuring favorite food and drink of the deceased.
The human race has become complacent. Once upon a time pestilence was something to worry about, but a few decades of relatively mild epidemics — and the discovery of medical fixes to keep them at bay — led most of us citizens of the 21st century to believe that pestilence and plague were things of the past.
This new virus, however, has shaken us. It is suggesting that maybe we were taking too much for granted, that we didn’t know how good we had it. It even dares criticize us for dedicating our few precious years of life to fun, football and Facebook.
Pestilence has visited Mexico before and those few epidemics that were recorded were far worse than this coronavirus.
The native people’s word for plague was cocoliztli and they used it to describe epidemics that swept through Mexico in 1520, 1545 and 1576.
The first of these was caused by smallpox, brought here by the Spaniards. It devastated the native population but hardly bothered the Spaniards.
Central Mexican victims of 1520 smallpox epidemic. Florentine Codex
In the Florentine Codex, Fray Bernardino de Sahagún says that the disease “brought great desolation: a great many died of it. They could no longer walk about, but lay in their dwellings and sleeping places, no longer able to move or stir. They were unable to change position, to stretch out on their sides or face down, or raise their heads.
“And when they made a motion, they called out loudly. The pustules that covered people caused great desolation; very many people died of them, and many just starved to death; starvation reigned, and no one took care of others any longer.”
The second epidemic hit Mexico only 25 years later. This one was far worse than the previous. The Spaniards had no idea what it was, so they gave it the name that the local people were using: cocoliztli. Spaniards who described it said the disease began with a high fever and headaches followed by bleeding from the eyes, mouth and nose, in fact from every bodily orifice. The victims’ tongues were dry and black and they experienced enormous thirst as well as delirium, dysentery, seizures and vomiting.
Whoever caught cocoliztli died within three or four days. It has been described as “a combination of hemorrhagic flu, yellow fever, jaundice, viral infection, malaria, typhus and typhoid.” Such a description, perhaps, is just a way of saying it was terrible but no one knew what it was — up until 2018, that is, when a team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany analyzed DNA extracted from the teeth of 29 skeletons buried in a cocoliztli cemetery.
What they found were traces of Salmonella enterica. Apparently salmonellosis, when unleashed upon those who have no resistance to it, is more devastating than we could ever imagine.
As you can see in the graph, smallpox struck in 1520 and killed an estimated 5-8 million people. Then, a few years later, two outbreaks of cocoliztli exterminated half of the remaining population.
Estimated population collapse in the 1500s.
This graph, taken from an article by Acuna-Soto et al in Emerging Infectious Diseases, says a lot, but it doesn’t say everything. Living in 2020 we know what has hit us and how it is transmitted. We have strategies for combating it and we can see ourselves defeating it in the near future.
The indigenous people of 16th-century Mexico could see none of this. How did they cope?
It’s no surprise that death inspired all sorts of rituals, customs and even philosophies here in Mexico.
We joke that nothing in life is sure except death and taxes, but even taxes are forgotten when overtaken by death. Says Fray Bernardino, “The worst attack of cocoliztli took place between 1567 and 1578 when it spread throughout the country, leaving more than 2 million dead. They say the towns were desolate and fields, mines and industries were abandoned. The viceroy was obliged to cancel and write off taxes and duties which were impossible to collect with things in such a state.”
Over many many centuries of cocoliztlis, people in what we now call Mexico developed a perspective based on the inescapable reality that death stalks every one of us and it’s impossible to know when it will finally do us in. The most obvious manifestations of this perspective are the traditions associated with El Día de los Muertos which are so unique that UNESCO considers them part of Mexico’s contribution to the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
A less flamboyant reaction to the reality that death is always around the corner is a code of behavior — supposedly developed by the Toltecs — called el sendero del guerrero or the warrior’s path, which urges us to carry out everything we do with impeccability, as if thumbing our nose at death.
Population changes for Spaniards and natives between 1570 and 1580.
Our present-day cocoliztli is forcing us to look at age-old questions: what will we take away with us when we go?
Life, said my teacher Caleb Gattegno, “is turning time into experience.” We can dedicate the limited amount of time given to us to fun, football and Facebook but, if Gattegno was right, the only thing we will be able to take with us when we die is awareness.
What awarenesses is our cocoliztli of 2020 bringing us?
COVID-19 is turning many of us into hermits. So why not do what hermits do and take a little time out for meditation?
Has COVID-19 made you aware of something you were not previously conscious of? Has your outlook changed? Have you changed?
If so, I hope you’ll share your thoughts and leave a comment below.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
The face of marijuana cultivation in Mexico is changing as more and more independent, boutique cannabis growers are popping up, providing high-quality “ethical” strains of weed free of cartel violence and influence, according to a report by Vice Media.
There are a number of factors at play in this new dynamic, including the availability of specialized seeds from the United States and Europe, the possibility of legalization within the country by the end of the year and a decline in demand for mass-produced weed due to legalization in the U.S.
But there is also a growing social consciousness among consumers that these small independent growers are banking on, marketing potent strains such as Chronic, Purple and Blue Dreams as “blood-free” weed, write Deborah Bonello and Miguel Angel Vega.
There is no cartel middleman in this emerging ethical cannabis market, with growers selling directly to dealers.
Farmers in states such as Sinaloa have switched from large, outdoor crops to carefully tended indoor operations, using lights, fertilizers and fans to allow the plants to mature under optimal circumstances. They are also dabbling in producing oils, edibles and other companion products as customers look for innovation in forms of THC delivery.
Although this kind of production incurs significantly higher costs, there’s no profit-sharing with cartel enforcers and profit margins are significantly higher. Whereas weed growers used to get around US $25 per kilo, dealers are now buying top-level cannabis at a price that varies from US $1,278 to $1,700 per half kilo.
However, by eschewing cartels pot growers face a number of challenges. Creating their own infrastructure for transporting their crops to dealers is one problem; operating under the radar of violent cartels is quite another.
“You’re not benefiting from any cartel protection structures or mechanism,” Jaime López, a security analyst, told Vice. “As long as you stay small and not too flashy you might avoid the vultures. But that’s a big if.”
And with a vote looming in the Senate (postponed until May 30 due to the coronavirus lockdown) on the legalization of marijuana, whether small, ethical marijuana cultivators will be able to hold their own in a larger, commercial market remains to be seen.
For now, however, blood-free weed seems to have found its niche market.
Factories in the north are planning to reopen soon.
Factories in five of Mexico’s six northern border states are planning to reopen in May even though it is not yet known whether the federal government will have lifted the restrictions that forced them to close due to the coronavirus pandemic.
More than 3,700 manufacturing companies have factories in northern border states, employing around 1.8 million people, according to data from the national statistics institute Inegi.
Those in Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas plan to resume operations in the coming weeks.
Gerardo Vázquez Falcón, president of the National Council of the Maquiladora Industry in Sonora, told the newspaper Milenio that the plan is to have all factories in the state operating by June 1.
He said that some factories will reopen as soon as next Monday, explaining that those in the automotive sector will resume operations first followed by those in the aerospace and electronics sectors.
About 85% of manufacturers in Sonora export their products to the United States, where productive sectors have not halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in that country wrote to President López Obrador this week, urging him to reconsider which businesses are considered essential.
Allowing factories to reopen in Mexico will help ensure that disruptions to the North American supply chain are minimized, the NAM said.
López Obrador said Thursday that he expected there would be an agreement “in due course” allowing factories to reopen but he didn’t offer a specific timeframe.
Nevertheless, Salvador Díaz González, president of the Otay de Mesa Industry Association in Tijuana, said that factories there were planning to reopen on May 4.
On the other side of the country in Tamaulipas, Julio Almanza Armas, an import/export business owner in the border city of Matamoros, said that factories are looking at reopening on May 18. Activity at the state’s ports has declined by 60% due to the closure of factories, he said.
The coronavirus crisis is predicted to take a heavy toll on the Mexican economy, with several financial institutions and international organizations forecasting economic contraction in the range of 5% to 10%.
The videos celebrate Mexico's beaches and other attractions.
The federal Tourism Ministry (Sectur) has launched a pair of promotional videos on YouTube to remind Canadian and Australian citizens of what Mexico has to offer when they are finally able to travel again.
People the world over might want to shake off the cabin fever by getting as far away from home as possible, and federal Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco hopes the videos will help citizens of those countries choose Mexico. Australia and Canada are among Mexico’s top markets for foreign tourists.
The videos highlight the natural and cultural attractions that Mexico has to offer, such as its gastronomy, Magical Towns, colonial cities, archaeological sites and beaches. Each is narrated in naturally accented English that speaks directly the residents of each country.
“G’day mate,” begins the video produced for the Australian market. “These are times for fluffy lamingtons, dusting off the board games, watching old classics, docos and sharing great stories.”
The narrator goes on to say that people here in Mexico are doing the same in their homes, then asks, “Remember the last time you visited me?”
Canada, my lovely friend, I'm still smiling about our lovely experience.
The video made for the Canadian market.
The video mentions falling in love with the food, learning to surf and all “those chill afternoons.” Although Mexico is taking care for the present, the narrator assures viewers it is thinking about the future.
“When we meet again, I promise to take you to try our spongy conchas,” says the narrator over a shot of the sugary sweet rolls.
The video made for the Canadian market follows a similar format, but focuses on the Quebec dish called poutine and maple treats and highlights beaches, camping and vineyards to attract more citizens of that country. It is available in both English and French.
Sectur has also released promotional videos for various states, including Yucatán, San Luis Potosí, Baja California, México state, Morelos and Oaxaca. Aimed at the domestic market, the approximately 30-minute Spanish-language videos provide detailed information about what each state has to offer.
But it isn’t just hotels and tour operators who feel the pinch. Street vendors in Mexico’s well established informal economy who rely on tourism to eke out a daily living are also struggling. Vendors in Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, have resorted to bartering directly for food in order to be able to eat.
Medical personnel wheel a coronavirus patient into a Mexico City hospital.
The coronavirus pandemic is currently at its peak in Mexico, according to a group of scientists at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) who used two epidemiological models to predict the development of the outbreak.
The SIR model – which considers the number of people susceptible to infection, the number of people already infected and the number of people who have recovered from Covid-19 – shows that the highest number of new coronavirus infections in Mexico will occur this week and next.
The SEIR model – which also considers the number of people believed to have been exposed to a contagious disease but who are not yet showing symptoms – shows the same.
The scientists used data from the federal government for both models.
“The SEIR model and the SIR model, which are different, are showing the same pattern,” said Víctor Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the UNAM Institute of Geophysics and member of the group of scientists who undertook the mathematical modeling.
“Both models predict that the highest peak of daily cases … will be reached in the third and fourth weeks of April,” he said.
Velasco added that, “given the dynamic of the pandemic,” the number of people requiring hospitalization for Covid-19 will increase and hospitals could be saturated in the coming weeks. According to the scientists’ modeling, there will be around 20,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in Mexico at the end of May, a figure less than double the current number of confirmed cases.
The predictions of the UNAM scientists differ from those of federal health authorities who say that the peak of the pandemic will be in the first two weeks of May.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said last week that the peak of transmission will be between May 8 and 10 and that the greatest pressure on the health system will come about two weeks later.
Although the UNAM scientists believe the pandemic is currently peaking, the government only declared the commencement of phase three of the outbreak – the most critical stage – on Tuesday.
In the three days since the declaration, 2,861 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were added to Mexico’s official tally, a figure that accounts for 25% of the total of 11,633.
The Health Ministry estimates that there are around eight undetected Covid-19 cases for each confirmed one, meaning that more than 100,000 people in Mexico may have been infected.
The UNAM scientists believe, however, that warm weather and sunlight have played a role in limiting the coronavirus spread in Mexico, although there is no international consensus that that is the case.
“My colleagues and I have a hypothesis: ultraviolet radiation has prevented Covid-19 from being merciless in Mexico because it’s a natural antiviral,” Velasco said.
The scientists predict that there will be a second wave of infections in the second half of 2020 and that if the government doesn’t develop a long-term strategy to limit the coronavirus spread, the situation in Mexico could worsen and become as bad as countries such as Italy, which has recorded more than 25,000 deaths.
“In the second half of the year, the rains will arrive first and then cold days. … They will create favorable conditions for this virus to move through the entire country again,” Velasco said.
“In addition, there won’t be the same quantity of ultraviolet radiation. Using artificial intelligence, we’ve made a prediction that … at the end of July, a second wave of Covid-19 will begin.”
The researcher said that the vast majority of epidemiological predictions he and his colleagues have made have proven to be accurate, adding that they would prefer to be proven wrong than to be accused of failing to see that a second wave of coronavirus infections would afflict Mexico.
Traditional dancers from Guerrero called Tlacololeros performed for hospital staff in Chilpancingo on Thursday to express their gratitude for their work and to urge residents to continue to remain in their homes.
The 10 Tlacololeros gathered outside the Raymundo Abarca Alarcón General Hospital in the state capital to perform for medical workers and relatives of sick patients and offer them a momentary respite.
In addition to dancing, some participants carried signs reading “Stay in your home” in order to urge citizens to continue observing the quarantine measures intended to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus for almost a month.
The Tlacololeros aren’t the only ones to have used their art to show gratitude to health workers during the pandemic. Mariachi bands in Acapulco and Mexico City have recently played outside of hospitals in those cities to show their gratitude.
But support for doctors and nurses has not been universal. Two women in Querétaro were arrested on Wednesday for harassing and attacking a nurse at a bus stop, and many other nurses have filed complaints after being attacked with eggs, coffee, bleach and other items in several municipalities across the country.
National Guardsmen dine with suspected criminals in Puebla.
After photos surfaced on social media of National Guard members sharing a meal with a family of politicians linked to criminal activity in Venustiano Carranza, Puebla, Governor Miguel Barbosa announced he would launch an investigation.
The governor told a press conference that he will file a complaint with the Ministry of Defense, the head of the National Guard and the Ministry of Public Safety regarding the meeting, which he described as “regrettable.”
The photos show seven uniformed members of the National Guard enjoying a meal in a seafood restaurant with several members of a clan linked to organized crime in the region. Another photo, the governor says, shows National Guard members stationed outside one of the family’s homes.
The family in question, the Valencia Ávila brothers, have taken turns as mayor of the municipality for a total of 12 years, and Vicente Valencia Ávila, the current mayor, is under investigation by the governor’s office. His son, Jonathan, is likely the person who first posted the incriminating photo to social media.
The brothers’ shady past is no secret. In 2018, police raided then-mayor Rafael Valencia Ávila’s home and found 50,000 liters of stolen gasoline, six guns and ammunition. Three people were arrested, including the mayor’s wife.
On April 16 of this year, José Luis Trejo Pérez, head of public safety during the Rafael Valencia administration, was arrested while in possession of a pistol and 43 baggies of cocaine. Trejo has been linked to three murders between 2015 and 2019.
In October 2019, Governor Barbosa Huerta announced that the state would take over the municipality’s police force due to corruption and criminality.
A statement from the National Guard on the investigation into the incident acknowledges that the family is part of a criminal organization and warns that administrative and or criminal sanctions may be applied to those who appear in the photos.
It’s not often that Mexican tax authorities embargo the home of one of Mexico’s richest men, but that’s precisely the step they took on April 17 in the case of Miguel Alemán Valdés, an owner of the airline Interjet, sparking speculation that bankruptcy was imminent.
However, the embattled carrier was quick to dispel its impending demise as pure conjecture.
In a statement, the company maintained that it has assets exceeding US $2.25 billion, more than enough to cover its current tax debt of $28.16 million.
Founded in 2005, Interjet had been Mexico’s third-largest airline, operating budget flights throughout Mexico and the Americas. The company’s president, Miguel Alemán Magnani, is the son of a former governor of Veracruz and grandson of former Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés, who amassed a fortune as an early investor in the broadcaster Televisa.
In 2017 Forbes estimated Alemán Velasco’s net worth to be $2.5 billion, calling him one of the 15 richest men in Mexico.
The embargo notice placed on Alemán’s home in Mexico City’s upscale Polanco district last week included personal property such as a library and a limousine.
The company, which suspended all international flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, has been struggling financially for months.
Last August the Federal Tax Administration (SAT) ordered Interjet to pay off some $27 million in back taxes, and since the beginning of this year lessors have repossessed at least 27 aircraft in the company’s fleet.
“Basically, it’s a default situation. Interjet has not been very transparent,” one lessor told AirFinance Journal. “They’ve always been quite wishy-washy, saying we’re going to pay on this date or that date but when the date comes there’s still no payment, so we’ve lost our patience with them.”
Interjet spun the return of planes differently, calling it contract renegotiations due to market conditions.
Interjet also says it expects to settle its tax debt entirely in the coming months and pointed out that it has been making regular tax payments in accordance with a plan approved by the SAT. The company also claims that the embargo on Alemán’s home may be lifted as early as next week.
