The Covid-19 pandemic has taken its toll on a number of sectors of the economy, but the alcohol industry did well earlier this month after being obliged to halt production and sales by the federal government.
The consultancy firm Nielsen Holdings observed a 63% increase in alcohol sales during the week of April 5-11 compared to the same period in 2019.
The announcement at the beginning of the quarantine period that beer would not be considered an essential product, halting production and sales in several states and municipalities, triggered panic buying across the country.
“At the beginning of that week beer companies announced they would temporarily halt production, which had a direct impact on their sales in several channels,” the firm said.
Beer sales were up 83% during the week, the demand for which was second only to milk.
Other alcoholic beverages also enjoyed boosts in sales: wine, of 82%, rum and brandy, 44%, whisky, 24%; and tequila, 5%.
The firm observed that sales of packaged foods grew more than perishables, with increases of 33% and 11% respectively.
In addition to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the study revealed that sales were also influenced by the beginning of the Easter vacation.
At least 29% of Mexican households reported that no one had left the home during the quarantine period. Of the 71% who did, the main reason they left the house was to buy food and other essential products.
When asked about how they shopped, 42% said they bought only what was necessary, while 14% said they bought extra to prepare for contingencies.
Covid-19 cases as of Thursday evening. The interactive version of this map can be found here.
More than 1,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were added to Mexico’s official tally for a second consecutive day on Thursday while the country is now one of just 16 around the world that have recorded more than 1,000 deaths from the disease.
The federal Health Ministry reported 1,089 new coronavirus infections on Thursday night, taking the total number of cases across Mexico to 11,633. Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía said that the death toll had risen to 1,069 from 970 a day earlier.
He also said that there are 7,588 suspected cases of Covid-19 in Mexico and that a total of 58,885 people have now been tested for the virus. Of the more than 11,000 confirmed cases, 4,127 are considered active, according to Health Ministry data.
With 99 new fatalities reported on Thursday, Mexico became the 16th country to record more than 1,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, late last year. Among those 16 countries, Mexico reached its first 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the second longest period of time after Switzerland.
Mexico recorded its first Covid-19 death on March 18 and its 1,000th on April 23 – a period of 37 days. Switzerland reached 1,000 deaths in 40 days.
Covid-19 deaths by state as of Thursday. milenio
The United States, meanwhile, where more than 44,000 people have now lost their lives to Covid-19, reached its first 1,000 deaths from the disease more quickly than any other nation: in just 12 days, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Spain reached the unfortunate milestone in 17 days, Brazil in 18, Italy in 20, Belgium in 22, the United Kingdom and Turkey in 24, Germany in 25, the Netherlands in 26, Iran in 31, Canada, France and China in 32 and Sweden in 35.
Although Mexico was the second slowest nation in reaching 1,000 fatalities, the pace at which the death toll is increasing is quickening: one-third of the 1,069 deaths reported occurred in the past three days.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell predicted in an interview on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic will claim between 6,000 and 8,000 lives in Mexico.
Mexico City has recorded the highest number of deaths to date with 268 followed by Baja California and México state, where 126 and 95 people, respectively, have lost their lives to Covid-19. Tabasco, Sinaloa, Puebla and Quintana Roo have each recorded more than 60 deaths while 42 people with Covid-19 have died in Chihuahua.
Mexico City also leads the country in terms of confirmed and active cases of Covid-19. The capital has recorded 3,157 cases since the disease was first detected in Mexico at the end of February and 1,268 of those cases are considered active.
México state has the second highest number of confirmed cases with 1,734 followed by Baja California with 1,075 and Sinaloa with 614. México state also ranks second for active cases with 642 followed by Baja California with 290 and Tabasco with 265.
The Nuevo León government reported that 165 new cases of Covid-19 were detected in Nuevo León on Thursday, a 50% increase in the total number of cases in the northern border state.
“It was a complicated day for Nuevo León; we have 165 new Covid-19 cases, the [epidemic] curve took off,” said state Health Minister Manuel de la O Cavazos.
He described the number of new cases detected as “astonishing” and said that stricter measures will be implemented in the state to limit the spread of the disease.
Almost 85% of the 165 new cases in Nuevo León were detected via testing at private laboratories, the newspaper Milenio reported.
A total of 496 cases of Covid-19 have now been confirmed in Nuevo León, according to Milenio, but federal Health Ministry data currently shows that there are only 249 confirmed cases in the state. That indicates that there is a delay between the statistics reported at the state-level and those reported by the federal government.
Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla claimed last week that there is a lag of up to seven days between his government’s reporting of data to federal health authorities and their inclusion of it in the statistics they present nightly.
The Weekly Huacal, a selection of vegetables, fruits and herbs from vendors in the Central de Abasto market.
The world is crazy. We all feel it. But besides being worried about our health and the health of those we love, there are lots of people out there worried about how they will pay the rent this month.
Around 30% of Mexicans work in the informal economy and conservative figures predict that 18 million people will lose their jobs and 10% of businesses nationwide will close. There won’t be stimulus checks like there are in other countries, so in order to survive we must support our local community.
The folks in Mexico City are getting creative with all kinds of new and expanded ways to make money. There are lots of avenues that we, as consumers, can use to ensure the survival of local businesses.
Lots of restaurants and shops are still offering delivery services. The Chilango website published a guide of dozens of restaurants that have closed to the public but are still delivering food or offering it for pick-up. A few places that weren’t offering delivery service before now are, including some of my local favorites – Glace Bistro is sending out their gourmet ice cream in half liters and Doña Emi’s tamales is now delivering to your doorstep (call 55 4535 0103).
Several of the pop-up restaurants we featured in an earlier piece are offering home-cooked meals delivered to your front door. Take a minute to reach out to your favorite local eatery and see if they are offering delivery/pick-up service.
Mexican comfort food can be delivered to your home.
New food delivery services are blossoming as freelancers and entrepreneurs pivot to use their skills in new ways. When Anais Ruiz’s food tours stalled she started to sell sweets and baked goods, a business that honors her French heritage. Maren Casorio, a poet and part-time cook, is now focusing 100% on her plant-based comida corrida (set lunch) delivery business, with menus posted each Sunday on social media.
Additionally, there are lots of ways to get fresh staples if you’re hesitant to order in and would rather cook for yourself. Local market stands are more than happy to send an order to your doorstep. These small, family-owned businesses need our support now more than ever. If you have a favorite market vendor, get their phone number and shop with them during this crisis.
The Mercadillo Huacal makes it even easier. On their website you can purchase a “Weekly Huacal” which is variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs from vendors in the Central de Abasto market. Each week, they publish on social media what that week’s basket contains.
You can add any of the additional products on their site to your order, all provided by local businesses – chocolate from La Rifa Chocolatería, coffee from AlmaNegra, sweet bread by Bonsanco. Each week they post the contents of the weekly box and you can even donate a box to be given to a local health worker or other folks in need.
Yolcan, an organic farming project, continues to offer their excellent deliveries on a weekly or biweekly basis of organic veggies and fruits from right here in the Valley of México. It’s a great way to support local farmers and keep them growing in these vulnerable times.
Another delivery service is provided by growers in San Gregorio Atlapulco. Hortalizas Mago (552 949 3115) accepts orders by text and delivers to the city.
Pradera Verde is also offering a weekly basket service with fresh fruits and vegetables from small, local producers. For more than just fruits, veggies and specialty items, bulk stores like Estado Natural offer home delivery of basics – grains, flours, sweets, coffee, organic soaps and detergents. The Vecinos Unidos Corredor Roma-Condesa, for residents in this area, are also announcing businesses and their offerings during this time via Twitter. Many neighborhoods in the city have accounts like this, so look for yours if you are in Mexico City.
The Yolcan chinampa garden offers produce deliveries.
A good entrepreneur can turn on a dime, and several local businesses have proven that. 3D printers Omar Ramos and María Ambrosio are now offering the plastic shield masks you may have seen shopkeepers wearing throughout the city. Homohabilis normally makes fine leather and suede goods but has shifted to making face masks with hypoallergenic leather that can be wiped down after each use and reused.
Other local businesses have expanded by taking their product to the internet. Aura Cooking School, run by chef Graciela Montaño, is offering its popular cooking classes online. Right now they have a taco class available with the promise of more soon – Mexican salsa making, Mexican breakfast food and Mexican sweets. Lauren Klein, a local stylist, has even taken haircutting lessons online.
Some businesses are banking on post-crisis business. The owners of Coffice, besides selling coffee and artisanal bread online to support their providers, are offering discounted, pre-paid time at their coworking cafe to be used at a future date. This kind of pre-paid business can really help a small business struggling now. Buying gift certificates for your favorite shop or restaurant is a great way to ensure they’re there in the future.
Culinaria Mexicana has put together an extensive list of restaurants around the country that are selling gift certificates.
For musicians that make their living playing for crowds, empty bars and restaurants make their situation dire. In response, local artists are taking their music online. Pitayo music, an independent jazz label based in Mexico City, is offering online jazz concerts to support its musicians. For the price of the ticket viewers also get to tap into the deals of the month from local sponsors of the concert – discounts and free stuff. They are also planning a benefit concert April 30 that will put money into a fund to support a whole network of local musicians.
All these are examples of ways we can support our local economy during this crisis, but there are hundreds more options if you want to contribute. Reach out to your community, support local businesses, and stay safe. We’ll see you on the other side.
Lydia Carey is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily. She lives in Mexico City.
Where's the body? Family members at the hospital where Ángel Dorado died.
Teresa Padrón’s husband died in a Mexico City hospital on Tuesday but she has no idea where his body is.
Ángel Dorado Salinas, 52, passed away in the General Hospital of Mexico early Tuesday morning after he was admitted five days earlier for treatment of chronic kidney disease. However, doctors said that the cause of his death was possibly Covid-19 even though test results had not confirmed that to be the case.
Padrón arranged for her husband’s body to be sent to a funeral home but she soon found out that the hospital had mixed up Dorado’s cadaver with that of another man.
“The funeral home … told me that I couldn’t see my husband and that the coffin was going to leave the hospital sealed. … I said that was OK but I wanted to make certain that the body in the coffin was my husband,” she told the newspaper Milenio.
Before the coffin was sealed at the hospital, a funeral home employee sent Padrón a photo of the corpse and she quickly realized that it wasn’t her husband but that of another man of about the same age.
“If it wasn’t for the blessed funeral home, they would have sent us another person,” she said.
With no idea what happened to Dorado’s body, Padrón and about a dozen relatives went to the hospital to demand that it be delivered to them.
“Mayor [Claudia Sheinbaum]: we request your intervention so that the body of Ángel Dorado is delivered to us. No one knows where he is,” said one placard held up by a family member.
Padrón told Milenio on Wednesday that she received a call from a doctor at the hospital who told her that they needed more time to find out what had happened to her husband’s body. She said that the doctor told her that the influx of coronavirus patients is “a situation that caught us unprepared – it’s not a typical situation.”
Some of Dorado’s relatives said they believed that his body had been delivered to another family and already cremated.
The owner of a funeral home in Iztapalapa, the Mexico City borough with the highest number of Covid-19 cases, said that he has recently dealt with people who have expressed doubt about whether the body inside the coffin was really that of their loved one who succumbed to Covid-19.
“They can’t see it, hug it or anything” because of the continued risk of infection, Javier Lozano said. “All they can do is trust the hospitals and the health professionals.”
Santiago Nieto speaks at the president's morning press conference.
The federal government is investigating former health officials who served in the administration of ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto for corruption, Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) chief Santiago Nieto said on Wednesday.
Nieto said that the UIF had detected government payments of 83 billion pesos (US $3.3 billion at today’s exchange rate) to pharmaceutical companies yet the same companies (he didn’t reveal how many) filed for losses with tax authorities.
“They presented tax losses for 416 million pesos, … we think that it’s a tax fraud scheme,” he said.
Nieto said that it appeared that some Health Ministry officials, especially those who worked on the now-defunct Seguro Popular healthcare program, were involved in an illegal contracting scheme.
Speaking at the National Palace in Mexico City, the UIF chief reminded reporters that the government has filed criminal complaints for corruption against several members of the Peña Nieto government including former cabinet minister Rosario Robles, currently imprisoned awaiting trial, and former Pemex chief Emilio Lozoya, who was arrested in February in Spain and remains in custody there.
“We also have complaints against [former communications and transportation minister Gerardo] Ruiz Esparza, he died but they’ll proceed against his inner circle … and obviously there is an investigation into [former social development minister] Luis Miranda for alleged acts of corruption,” Nieto said.
The newspaper El Universal reported last week that the Ministry of Public Administration is also conducting a probe into the financial transactions carried out by Peña Nieto, his ex-wife Angélica Rivera and his four children during the term of his government between 2012 and 2018. But President López Obrador denied that there was an investigation into his predecessor.
“There is no investigation open,” he said, adding that citizens might have asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate the ex-president but “we haven’t formulated any complaint.”
Shutting down factories in Mexico has broken the supply chains integral to trade with the US.
Manufacturers in the United States and Mexico are calling on the federal government to allow the reopening of certain Mexican factories that were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic in order to maintain supply chains in the North American market.
And it appears President López Obrador is listening: he said on Thursday that he expected there would be an agreement “in due course” to allow factories that contribute to the regional supply chain to begin operating normally again.
“We’ve pledged, above all with Mexican businesses, to analyze these openings so we can gradually return to operating as normal,” he told reporters at his morning news conference.
The president’s remarks came a day after the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a Washington D.C.-based advocacy group, sent him a letter asking that his government refer to the guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to determine whether a particular factory be designated as essential and critical.
By doing so, Mexico would help ensure that manufacturers of essential and critical products and components can continue operations, the NAM said.
The association said earlier it appreciated the critical steps that Mexico is taking to slow the spread of Covid-19 but added that it was “deeply concerned about the health emergency decrees” that have resulted in the forced or threatened shuttering of its companies’ manufacturing facilities, as well as those of suppliers.
The situation imperils companies’ ability to “deliver critical supplies and daily essentials to citizens in Mexico and across North America,” the letter said.
“This is a pivotal moment. We are working with urgency to arm our healthcare providers and other Covid-19 frontline workers with the resources they need to save and protect the lives of our fellow citizens. The shuttering of our companies’ and suppliers’ facilities in Mexico, however, threatens to undermine that effort,” it continued.
Signed by the chief executive officers of more than 300 companies, including firms that manufacture medical supplies, the letter said that the health and safety of workers was the highest priority of the NAM. Factory employees allowed to return to work would practice “appropriate physical distancing” and use the necessary personal protective equipment, the NAM said.
The association, which represents some 14,000 companies in total, also wrote to López Obrador last week to warn him that the shutdown of factories could weaken the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“At a time when we need to ramp up the production of personal protective equipment, lifesaving equipment and medicines, we cannot afford to have any of these critical supply chains shut down,” it said.
“Our healthcare sectors depend on the many products that we make — from medicines, sanitation supplies and inputs used to produce respirators and masks to the grains used to make bread and critical parts that ensure trucks can deliver groceries.”
The American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico has also called on the government to allow productive activities that are considered essential in the U.S. to be carried out here during the emergency health period, currently scheduled to run through May 30.
Aligning Mexico’s essential activities with those in the United States “is necessary to protect value chains and the economic integration of both countries,” said the chamber’s Gustavo Almaraz.
United States Defense Undersecretary Ellen Lord and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau have also made it clear that they want Mexican factories that supply U.S. defense companies to reopen.
“I’m doing all I can to save supply chains between Mexico, the United States and Canada,” Landau wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Also calling on the government to declare productive sectors such as automotive, aerospace and electronics essential is Mexico’s Confederation of Industrial Chambers (Concamin).
If Mexico is unable to supply companies in the United States and Canada, they will look for local suppliers and Mexico will miss out on the economic benefits of being part of an integrated North American market, said Concamin representative Eduardo Solís.
“[Mexico would] lose all that we have gained … exports that were growing at double digits before this situation,” he said.
Solís, former president of the Mexican Auto Industry Association, also wrote to López Obrador to ask him to review the list of activities considered essential. “We’re putting everything we have gained at risk,” he reiterated.
Images of the alleged gangsters surfaced on social media late Tuesday.
In a show of force on Tuesday night around 80 members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) took over the main square in Valparaíso, Zacatecas, an agricultural town of about 13,000.
A convoy of around 25 slow-moving pickup trucks drove through the town, located about 170 kilometers southwest of the state’s capital, and parked in front of city hall. Presumed cartel members jumped out of their vehicles, brandished their weapons, including AK-47s, and shouted “we are Jalisco New Generation,” for several minutes as shocked residents filmed the event.
The city is near the border of Jalisco and Durango and was thought to be controlled by the rival Sinaloa Cartel.
The footage was widely circulated on social media and prompted the state’s Ministry of Public Safety to issue a statement on Wednesday afternoon saying that police and military authorities did not witness the event and had not located any of the vehicles involved.
“As a result of the circulation of these videos, and although there is a presence of security forces in the municipality of Valparaíso, we have decided to strengthen the police presence,” the statement read. Spokesperson Rocío Aguilar said an investigation would be launched to determine whether the footage was actually filmed in Valparaíso and seemed to doubt its authenticity.
The cartel’s march on Valparaíso was not an isolated event. Another group of vehicles carrying men armed with long guns was seen in El Talayote on Wednesday. Minutes later, a third convoy was spotted in southeast Zacatecas on the road to Loreto.
The cartel has not been shy about announcing its arrival in the state and its plans to control the drug trafficking plaza. Ten days ago it hung vinyl banners threatening criminals, promising citizens safety and warning police not to collaborate with extortionists and kidnappers or risk joining the ranks of the cartel’s enemies.
The CJNG has employed similar tactics in other states as they expand their reach throughout Mexico. And their presence is not necessarily a bad thing, some residents say.
A priest in Apatzingán, Michoacán, told ABC News last month that “it seems like they allow people to work, and they don’t prey on civilians, they don’t kidnap, they don’t steal vehicles, they just go about their drug business.”
A restaurant owner in Guanajuato concurred. “Things are quieter when Jalisco is around,” he told the news agency.
But the CJNG is anything but peaceful. The number of bodies attributed to them in Guadalajara filled that city’s morgue to overflowing, and corpses had to be stored in refrigerated trucks. Last October the cartel killed 14 police officers, many of them execution-style. They have even taken down a security forces helicopter using a rocket-propelled grenade.
Two women in Querétaro were arrested on Wednesday after they attacked a healthcare worker they accused of being infected with Covid-19.
Police were forced to intervene when they spotted the two women harassing an employee of the city’s specialized hospital for women and girls at a bus stop. They began by berating her and attempted to physically attack her before police detained them.
The two attackers could face up to three years in prison or 24-100 days of community service, as well as a fine of up to 24,644 pesos (US $977).
There have been at least three incidents of aggression directed at health workers in Querétaro during the Covid-19 pandemic. Two nurses who boarded a public transit bus in San Juan del Río were asked by the passengers to get off for fear of contagion, and a nurse in Cadereyta de Montes was attacked with bleach.
The events prompted state health services director María Pérez Rendón to recommend that health workers not put on their scrubs or other medical uniforms until they arrive at work in order to avoid further aggressions.
The state has seen 13 health workers become infected during the pandemic. Three of the infections were transmitted from patients suffering from the virus and the rest came from external contact.
Health workers in Querétaro aren’t the only ones to have experienced such fear-based discrimination. A Yucatán man threw hot coffee on a nurse in Mérida in early April and attacks against medical personnel have also been reported in Jalisco, Morelos and elsewhere in Yucatán.
Not surprisingly, the president's plan was found lacking by analysts.
The measures outlined by President López Obrador on Wednesday to confront the coronavirus-induced economic crisis have been given a cool reception by economists and other financial experts.
The president’s plan was described by various analysts as “completely insufficient,” contrary to what is recommended, “a great disappointment” and “nothing new” and one warned it will hinder rather than help growth.
López Obrador announced a range of spending cuts on Wednesday morning that he said would allow an extra US $25.4 billion to to be spent on social programs and key infrastructure projects. Among them: 25% salary cuts for high ranking officials and a 75% reduction in spending on general services and supplies.
The president continues to refuse to increase public debt to provide fiscal support for the Mexican economy even as it appears headed for a deep recession in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to contain the spread of the virus.
Rodolfo de la Torre, an economist and director of the Mexico City-based think tank CEEY, said the austerity measures announced by the president go against what is recommended in crisis situations.
The government should increase spending rather than reduce it, he said, asserting that the López Obrador administration should take on debt to support businesses that are at risk of collapsing.
De la Torre recommended that the government borrow 3% to 4% of GDP to provide stimulus and contended that some of the spending on infrastructure should be redirected elsewhere.
Federico Rubli, an economist and business consultant, described the plan as “a great disappointment.”
“It’s not a coherent plan to reactivate the economy and confront this crisis. They’re presenting austerity measures at the least appropriate time. … They have to turn around and look at what is being done in other parts of the world, which is … injecting resources [into the economy] to support small and medium-sized businesses,” he said.
Rubli also said that it is “reprehensible” that the government is not postponing its three emblematic infrastructure projects, the Maya Train in the country’s southeast, the Santa Lucía airport north of Mexico City and the Dos Bocas oil refinery on the Tabasco coast.
“He [López Obrador] is insisting on maintaining the oil sector as the motor of the economy,” he added, referring to López Obrador’s decision not to cut investment for petroleum production by the state oil company. “It’s completely outdated to think that the oil sector will be the motor to get us out of this crisis.”
Villarreal: president is surrounded by people ‘who know nothing.’
Carlos Ramírez of the consultancy firm Integralia said the cuts the government has made to spending since it took office are “laudable” and that nobody is against helping the nation’s most vulnerable.
However, he said that López Obrador is running the risk of bringing the public sector to a standstill by cutting government spending so deeply.
The general director of the Institute for Industrial Development and Economic Growth, a think tank, said that it is “difficult to think” that the government will be able to combat effectively “the worst global recession in 100 years” without increasing public spending.
José Luis de la Cruz also said that López Obrador is misguided in thinking that he will be able to protect Mexico’s poorest from the economic impact of the crisis through social program spending alone.
“The president believes that he’ll be able to protect the poorest with the same [welfare] payments that he budgeted. But while he’s not protecting the capacity of companies to generate jobs, there will clearly be no way to protect the most vulnerable,” he said.
López Obrador has said repeatedly that his administration is focused on assisting Mexico’s poorest rather than large companies that have been bailed out by past governments. But poverty-fighting nonprofit Oxfam México said this week that the government’s social programs don’t reach all of the country’s needy people.
“The pensions for the elderly, [student] scholarships and pensions for people with disabilities don’t cover all people in situations of poverty,” the NGO said on Twitter. Among those missing out are people who live day to day, subsisting on very low incomes, Oxfam said.
The government has committed to extending federal employment programs such as the tree-planing scheme known as Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) while López Obrador said Wednesday that 3 million loans will be made available to poor and middle-class Mexicans to help them through the coronavirus-induced economic downturn.
But according to Oxfam the support “will not be insufficient” to see the nation’s poorest through the tough economic times that are predicted to persist for months.
López Obrador is more focused on protecting public finances than jobs, said Gabriela Siller, head of economic analysis at financial group Banco Base. She charged that the government needs to adopt “an expansive fiscal policy” aimed at avoiding widespread job losses.
Héctor Villarreal, general director of the Budget and Economics Research Center, a think tank, blamed the government more widely for the plan presented by the president.
López Obrador is surrounded by people who “know nothing” and the Finance Ministry’s response to the economic crisis has been “pathetic,” he said.
The president “might think that he’s generating big savings but the public sector was already very lean,” Villareal added.
“Now its muscle, tendons and bones have been removed. … Where there should be spending cuts and dismissals is at Pemex.”
Amin Vera, economic analysis director at asset management firm BW Capital, predicted that the measures will end up having a negative impact on growth rather than a positive one.
“That’s why banks such as BBVA are already suggesting scenarios with contractions greater than 10% [in 2020],” he said.
He also said that López Obrador failed to provide details about how he plans to create 2 million new jobs by the end of the year.
The economic plan to combat the coronavirus crisis is “completely insufficient,” Salazar said. “More targeted support measures are needed considering that there are sectors that are very badly hit.”
Marco Oviedo, chief economist for Barclays in Latin America, and Alejandro Saldaña, chief economist at the financial company Ve Por Más, both said that the salary cuts for high-ranking officials could affect the operational capacity of the public service and lead to a brain drain of talented personnel.
“This diminishes the motivation … to work,” Ovideo said. “I think it’s unnecessary and doesn’t save a lot.”
Governments across the globe are scrambling to provide ventilators for critically ill coronavirus patients, and Mexico is no different. The country may need up to 20,000, experts say, and currently only has 3,000.
So the government’s announcement that it has approved the production of ventilators developed by the National Council for Science and Technology (Conacyt) may be welcome.
President López Obrador said a French aerospace company based in Querétaro will produce Conacyt’s device, and make around 500 a week. The first batch is set to be delivered by the first or second week of May, which health officials suspect will be when the virus begins to peak.
The ventilators’ approval came from the Federal Commission for Protection Against Sanitary Risk (Cofepris).
Meanwhile, five other low-cost ventilator production projects are on hold pending Cofepris approval. Three Mexican universities, Volkswagen and the non-profit Reesistencia Team México have plans to make the device.
The latter is a working group of 25 multi-disciplinary engineers out of Sonora looking to use equipment like 3D printers to produce ventilators, mimicking a similar project in Spain. The name is derived from their goal of helping people “resist” the virus.
During a recent press conference, the president said a second ventilator prototype developed by Conacyt is in the final phase of testing and could be in production by the third week of May.
However, while ventilators are sorely needed, having them doesn’t necessarily mean survival for those who are gravely ill.
A new study by the Journal of American Medical Association found that, in New York, 88% of coronavirus patients on ventilators it tracked died. That’s a sobering rate of morbidity and much higher than the 50% survival rate many doctors had hoped for.
“For those who have a severe enough course to require hospitalization through the emergency department it is a sad number,” said Karina W. Davidson, a professor at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, who authored the study.
