Meet Panchito, an elephant seal that has spent the last week on a Nayarit beach.
An elephant seal peacefully stranded on a beach in Nayarit for the past week has been enchanting visitors and locals and raising questions by environmental officials about its extraordinary appearance so far from home.
It is not yet certain what subspecies of elephant seal it is that suddenly appeared on the shores of San Pancho Beach on July 5. No one has got close enough to the animal — named “Panchito” by delighted locals — to take a blood sample and risk being bitten, nor have experts been willing to risk its health by moving it.
However, whichever subspecies Panchito is, sea elephants are cold water animals, and its closest natural habitat to Nayarit would be the northern part of the Baja peninsula.
Authorities have cordoned off Panchito’s location to protect the animal, and marine experts continue to observe without further interference for now. They estimate it weighs between 200 and 300 kilos.
The seal has been seen entering the ocean multiple times and then returning to the beach, and environmental officials say that, at the moment, Panchito appears to be in good health and merely resting.
“It could be that he returns to the sea and leaves [for good], or his state of health could take a turn for the worse, and that’s when we would intervene,” said Roberto Moncada, a marine biologist at the Bahía de Banderas Technological Institute.
Despite the hands-off approach, Panchito has been a popular attraction since arriving, making a splash on social media.
Elephant seals, are carnivorous mammals and there are two types — northern and southern. Northern elephant seals, scientifically known as Mirounga angustirostris, normally live in an area stretching from the Gulf of Alaska to the northern Baja peninsula.
However, southern elephant seals, or Miroungaleonina, come from much farther away in the southern Atlantic, off the coast of Argentina. Some colonies of southern elephant seals exist as far south as Tasmania and New Zealand.
While elephant seals are known to take long journeys in search of food, if Panchito turns out to be a southern elephant seal, a journey this far from home would be extremely unusual.
“If it is indeed [a southern one], this animal is far, far away from its habitat,” said Moncada. “Its arriving here would be a record.”
The elephant seal Panchito on the beach in San Francisco, Nayarit.
Number of employees registered with the health service since December 2017. el financiero
More than 1.1 million formal sector workers lost their jobs between March and June due to the coronavirus pandemic and associated restrictions.
Mexico shed a total of 1,113,677 formal sector jobs during the four-month period, according to the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
Considering the growth in employment recorded in January and February, net job losses in the first half of the year totaled 921,583.
IMSS reported on Sunday that 83,311 formal sector workers lost their jobs in June, the first month of the so-called “new normal” in which coronavirus restrictions applied on a state by state rather than national basis.
While it doesn’t make for happy reading, the result is an improvement compared to March, April and May during which formal sector job losses totaled 1,030,366.
Since Covid-19 was first detected in Mexico at the end of February, almost 184,000 formal sector workers in Mexico City lost their jobs, a figure that accounts for about one-sixth of all job losses in the country over the past four months.
Quintana Roo, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism, shed just over 113,000 jobs in the same period, while more than 80,000 people lost their jobs in both Nuevo León and Jalisco, home to the large cities of Monterrey and Guadalajara.
As a result of the heavy job losses, the number of people employed in the formal sector is 4.3% lower than a year ago. The annual decline is the largest since IMSS began keeping comparable records in 1997.
Compared to the end of June 2019, the number of people employed in the construction, business service and mining sectors has declined by 11.6%, 8.1% and 6.5%, respectively.
Quintana Roo suffered the worst year-over-year decline in employment numbers as expressed in percentage terms. The number of people working in the formal sector in the Caribbean coast state at the end of June was 22.9% below the level at the end of the same month last year.
With an 11.7% drop in formal sector employment, Baja California Sur, which also depends on tourism for a significant percentage of its GDP, recorded the second largest decline over the past 12 months, while Guerrero saw a 7.2% fall to rank third.
Accumulated job losses by state from March until June, in thousands of positions. el financiero
However, IMSS data shows that more people were employed in some sectors and states at the end of June than a year earlier.
Jobs in the agricultural, social services and electricity sectors increased by 3.5%, 2.3% and 0.1% respectively, while formal sector employment was up by 1.4% at the end of June in Tabasco and 0.1% in each of Michoacán and Baja California.
The total number of formal sector jobs lost over the past four months is more or less in line with a forecast by President López Obrador, who said July 1 that he expected the coronavirus crisis to cost Mexico 1 million positions.
The president claimed that job losses had “bottomed out” and predicted that an employment recovery would commence in July.
However, experts who spoke with the newspaper El Financiero warned that more jobs could be lost and that an employment recovery, when it comes, will be slow.
“It’s still too soon to know if we’ve already bottomed out,” said Carlos López Jones, chief economist at economic forecasting company Tendencias Económicas y Financieras.
“Recovering the level of formal employment we had before the pandemic could take the rest of [López Obrador’s] six-year term,” López Jones said.
Jesuswaldo Martínez, a researcher at the Senate’s Belisario Domínguez Institute, said that while it’s “desirable” to think that job losses have “bottomed out,” the reality remains that the coronavirus pandemic is not under control, and that situation will hinder economic recovery.
“What [the lack of control] generates is a higher degree of uncertainty,” Marínez said, adding that while the virus continues to spread unabated, “it’s likely that economic activity won’t recover and there won’t be investment or jobs.”
Carlos Ramírez of the consultancy firm Integralia also said that he feared it will take years to recover the more than 1 million jobs that have been lost.
Mexico’s economy is forecast to suffer a deep recession in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the measures put in place to slow its spread.
The International Monetary Fund predicted in late June that Mexico’s GDP will shrink 10.5% this year, a bigger contraction than that forecast for every other country in Latin America.
Staff at Tippy Toes in Mazatlán, where a consultant was hired to ensure it complied with 30 pages of new regulations.
In Mexico City, Bridget Rutherford watched with alarm as the coronavirus spread from China to Europe and beyond.
A native Australian, she and her Mexican-born husband opened the first of 14 hair removal salons in 2011; now Wax Revolution has 130 employees and thousands of customers spread throughout Mexico City, Querétaro and Puebla.
“I knew this was going to come to Mexico,” she said. “I started preparing in January.”
In mid-March Mexico City closed down. The couple negotiated discounted rents and continued to pay staff to “sit at home,” although some kept working, setting up pre-paid future appointments. “Everyone was hurting,” said Rutherford.
Official estimates say half a million formal businesses in Mexico could close in the next six months, with unknown numbers of casual workers and small family-run businesses affected. Without any kind of unemployment benefits — neither the federal nor local governments in Mexico provide this — what will these people do?
“There’s no safety net for them,” said Deborah Rodriguez, who started a GoFundMe campaign to pay her staff at Tippy Toes Salon in Mazatlán during what she calls “an unimaginable worst-case scenario.” Regular customers bought gift certificates or donated, as well as “random people from around the world,” she said.
But taking care of employees was just one piece of the unfolding crisis for business owners. Even as the Mexican president downplayed the pandemic and claimed the country was “morally protected,” they tried to prepare for an eventual re-opening. And now, after almost four months of no income, for many that time has come — albeit with a tangled web of new regulations and protocols that vary by city, state and type of business.
Rutherford found Australia’s protocols online, adjusted them for her business and then translated them into “10 Mandamientos de Higiene” (“10 health commandments”), which are part of the new training all her employees received. Rodriguez made changes in her salon, using recommendations from the U.S. Professional Beauty Industry, including reupholstering seating with wipeable vinyl and installing plexiglass barriers. She also had her employees certified in Covid-19 training by salons provider Barbicide.
“Your health, my health and my staff’s health is the most important thing right now, and I want people to feel they can come to Tippy Toes with confidence,” said Rodriguez in Mazatlán. “If it can’t be washed, dipped or sprayed with Barbicide, or be disinfected with extreme heat, then we consider it a single-use item and will throw it away. That’s our guarantee of cleanliness.”
Rodriguez even hired a consultant to make sure she was in compliance with the 30 pages of regulations that arrived by email before the city reopened on July 1. Precautions begin with a sanitation mat at the door filled with disinfectant to clean shoes; temperatures are checked, everyone must wear a face mask; hand sanitizer is mandatory. Rodriguez uses a disinfectant mister to clean rooms between clients; Rutherford, whose staff is 99% registered nurses, said they’d already been using many of these standards before the pandemic hit.
“A lot of Covid precautions are medical standards we’re taught — wiping everything down with medical grade disinfectant, always using clean sheets, thorough hand-washing — so all that, I was already doing,” said Mexico City acupuncturist Megan Maclaggan. Now she wears a mask and a shield, takes patients’ temperatures, and changes not just her mask but her clothes between each patient.
Don Pedro’s Restaurant in Sayulita is operating at 50% capacity, but it’s in the minority.
“The only way we can get back to normal is if there is no spread of the disease,” said Rutherford. All staff received extensive training during the shutdown, not just about the salon’s new protocols, but about what also had to be done in their personal lives. For example, if anyone has contact with a Covid-positive person, they’re given two weeks off with pay.
“I want that Covid disappears from our planet! The only way to do it is to limit contagion,” Rutherford explained. “If everyone does all these things, it is possible to limit the transmission. Then we can all go back to life as we know it. It’s not about the individual, it’s about all of us.”
Despite government reports claiming the situation is improving, Mexico has the fourth highest death toll of any country, with more than 40,000 new cases last week, and nearly 300,000 confirmed cases as of Sunday. Government health officials repeatedly warn that the numbers may actually be higher, and some states are considering shutting down again. Yet Mexico has opened for tourism and is promoting heavily.
In Sayulita, where tour buses arrive daily and disgorge hundreds of passengers for “a day at the beach,” restaurant owner Damian Porter said he’s trying to “hold the line” in terms of health protocols, using the state’s mandates as well as his own guidelines.
Unlike Puerto Vallarta in neighboring Jalisco, beaches in Nayarit are still officially closed – although there’s little or no enforcement and vendors and tourists crowd the sand. Businesses are supposed to allow only certain percentages of capacity, yet again nothing is being enforced and most bars, shops and restaurants are packed.
“It’s hard to enforce — I get it,” said Porter, whose Don Pedro’s Restaurant & Bar is one of Sayulita’s oldest and most popular restaurants. After furloughing 60 employees with pay for three months and starting a take-out/delivery service, reopening is a mixed bag. He’s had to close the restaurant’s beach entrance and take away tables on the sand, even while others continue to operate fully.
“Unfortunately, everyone’s chasing the dollar. Hopefully people understand our position, and that we’re doing the best we can for our staff.”
Don Pedro’s has put in place all the familiar measures: social distancing for tables, masks for all, automated disinfectant dispensers, sanitizer mats. They’re operating at 50% capacity, and tables are disinfected between customers. Staff and customers get their temperatures taken and any employee with signs of sickness is not allowed to work.
Yet all these precautions are for naught if people don’t comply by wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines. Tourists, visiting somewhere for a long weekend, are often unwilling to “spoil” their vacation by following basic protocols. And in Mexico and around the world, younger people especially don’t seem worried about catching — or spreading — the coronavirus.
“My obligation is to take care of my staff,” said Porter. “A lot of them live in multi-generational households. I try to explain to them that this is what happened in Italy and Spain.”
In Mexico City, Rutherford said they’ve had the occasional client who’s a “Covid-denier,” but they’re not allowed in the salon if they don’t wear a mask.
“They prefer to have the service than not,” she said. “And if they post on social media, that’s just fine. It won’t hurt us — quite the contrary! Our clients are happy about our measures, and they feel safe about coming back.”
Despite all these concerns, businesses all over Mexico are opening and people are eager to return to shopping, eating out or getting their hair cut.
“There’s a moment of ‘normal’ for people when they come in to the salon,” said Rodriguez. “They get a pedicure or a haircut, and they feel good. For just a moment they’re not in the Covid world.”
López-Gatell takes a more conciliatory approach on Sunday.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell called for unity in the fight against coronavirus as Mexico’s Covid-19 case tally neared 300,000 on Sunday and the official death toll exceeded 35,000.
López-Gatell adopted a more conciliatory tone on Sunday, saying that his intention was to draw attention to everybody’s need to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
“The risk is not for me, the president or the government. The risk is … for everyone and the solution depends on … joint responsibility,” he said.
The attempt at damage control could be too little too late as some state governors remain angered by the accusation that they are not providing reliable data to the federal government and that they are to blame for a spike in coronavirus case numbers.
Active case numbers as of Sunday. milenio
Members of the Association of National Action Party Governors, who collectively govern nine states, said Saturday that they would ask for an urgent meeting with federal Health Minister Jorge Alcocer to seek clarification about López-Gatell’s remarks.
Officials with the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López Hernández, who governs for Morena, Mexico’s ruling party, also took umbrage at the deputy minister’s comments on Friday.
San Luis Potosí Health Minister Mónica Liliana Rangel said that authorities in that state have always provided the coronavirus data sought by the federal Health Ministry in a timely manner, while Coahuila Interior Minister José María Fraustro accused López-Gatell of not understanding how the pandemic is playing out on the ground.
“The reality of which Hugo López-Gatell speaks is theoretical because he doesn’t even know the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” Fraustro said.
“If he wants to see what is really happening, he should come and meet with the governors and [state] health ministers. … It’s urgent for him to know the reality, that it’s not the same as what is depicted to him through infection and death statistics.”
For his part, López Hernández said that his administration is providing data to the federal government about the coronavirus outbreak in Tabasco as many as three times a day.
López Obrador says pandemic is on the wane.
He charged that the federal Health Ministry has presented inconsistent data – not the other way around – explaining that he had spoken to López-Gatell because statistics on the availability of hospital beds in Tabasco made public at Friday night’s coronavirus press conference didn’t match state records.
López Hernández also said that his administration has followed all of the advice of the federal government with regard to reopening even though the latter has made it clear that the states can tweak as they see fit the recommended restrictions at each risk level according to the four-tier “stoplight” system.
López-Gatell reiterated on Sunday that state governments have the authority to take “informed decisions” based on the “stoplight” map, which has not yet been updated for this week as a result of the alleged data inconsistencies.
Amid the disagreement between the federal government and the states, Mexico’s accumulated Covid-19 case tally increased to 299,750 on Sunday with 4,482 additional cases registered. About 10% of the total – 29,839 – are currently active, according to federal data.
An additional 276 Covid-19 fatalities were added to the official death toll, which now stands at 35,006. Mexico now ranks fourth for Covid-19 fatalities, having passed Italy’s death toll on Sunday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Only the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom have recorded more Covid-19 deaths than Mexico.
The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio
But in a video message posted online on Sunday, President López Obrador pointed out that Mexico’s per-capita fatality rate is lower than other countries with high death tolls such as the U.S., the U.K and Spain.
“This means that [the pandemic in Mexico] is not as the conservative newspapers show,” he said.
The president charged that the “conservative press” is being alarmist by comparing the situation in Mexico to that in other countries.
Citing a Health Ministry report, López Obrador asserted that Mexico’s pandemic is in fact on the wane because case numbers are only increasing in nine of 32 states. He defended his government’s management of the coronavirus crisis amid the growing criticism.
“I want to provide tranquility, security that we’re moving forward, improving; we’re facing up to this pandemic well and professionally,” López Obrador said.
“There is space [in the hospitals], there are beds, there is equipment, there is specialized personnel to look after the sick,” he said.
López Obrador defended the work of López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus point man, asserting that he’s the victim of a smear campaign.
“They attack him constantly, they’re desperate because what they expected didn’t happen,” he said, without explaining what was expected.
The president, who has faced criticism himself for downplaying the seriousness of the pandemic, praised citizens for acting responsibly during the pandemic and thus helping to suppress the virus.
“The people of Mexico have acted in an exemplary way. If we’ve been able to confront this pandemic, it has been due to the responsible and sensible attitude of our people,” he said.
The president called on citizens only to leave their homes if it is really necessary and urged them to continue to observe social distancing recommendations, good hygiene practices and to avoid crowds.
Study says more cash needed to alleviate extreme poverty.
At least 16 million more Mexicans are estimated to have fallen into extreme poverty between February and May of this year, a new study shows.
The research paper produced by Curtis Huffman and Héctor Nájera of Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) looked at the effects of the coronavirus on the economy and is the “worst-case scenario” identified so far for Mexico’s poor.
The study estimates that the number of Mexicans in extreme poverty has risen from 22 million to 38 million, and builds on estimates by the social development agency Coneval.
On May 11, Coneval published a study in which it presented a first approximation of the impact of Covid-19, which showed that up to 10.7 million Mexicans could fall into poverty by the end of 2020 due to the health crisis and its economic consequences.
The UNAM study concludes that government financial assistance is necessary, highlighting “the urgency of making additional income transfers to this population in the coming weeks.”
The researchers found that providing at least 450 pesos per person per month, about US $20, to those in extreme poverty would prevent them from going hungry. Extreme poverty as defined by Coneval is the inability of those living in urban areas to purchase a minimum of 1,632 pesos (US $73) per month of basic food items.
The cost of implementing such a program is estimated to be 19 billion pesos per month, around US $847 million, which represents 0.9% of Mexico’s gross domestic product, the study said.
Calle Aldama & Cardo by Karen Lee Dunn of San Miguel de Allende.
Mexico has always attracted adventurous foreigners looking for something different, but the expat enclave phenomenon we know now in San Miguel de Allende began in the 20th century.
San Miguel is not the first, nor the last, but it is the best known, especially north of the border. The first was Taxco, just three hours from Mexico City.
In the 1920s, it attracted foreigners and artists, some famous, for its scenery and “authentic” Mexican atmosphere. But by the late 1930s, there were “too many” foreigners, leading some to look for an alternative.
Around that same time, a Peruvian artist discovered the dying town of San Miguel de Allende. The loss of the commercial silver routes and the Mexican Revolution had decimated the local economy. However, Felipe Cossío de Pomar “fell in love with the light” there and envisioned the town as the “new Bauhaus” to give artists a sanctuary to work in.
He convinced the Mexican government to let him use an old convent (today the main cultural center) to establish an art school. Cossío had many contacts with prominent artists and intellectuals in Mexico and abroad and succeeded in promoting San Miguel as the new “authentic Mexican” experience.
La Vendedora de Flor by San Miguel’s Susan Santiago.
Cossío got the school started, but it was the work of American Stirling Dickinson that gave the school and San Miguel its standing among North Americans. He continued to promote the town as an “undiscovered gem,” but the real success came when he got the school accredited with the U.S. government to receive World War II G.I. Bill money.
However, the school’s success also brought some major headaches. The main issue was an already existing conflict between the bohemian artists of the school and the rather conservative Catholic locals. This was exacerbated by hundreds of American GIs.
In addition, students expected more from their tuition money, and even staged a strike that divided the entire population. To satisfy the students, the school hired David Alfaro Siqueiros to paint a mural, but his radical politics proved completely unacceptable to the townspeople. His unfinished mural can still be seen today in the Centro Cultural Ignacio Ramírez El Nigromante.
The situation caused an international scandal, so the Mexican government stepped in. It took over, changing the school’s name to the current Instituto Allende. It was moved to the De la Cana Hacienda on the outskirts of town, a larger space, but G.I. Bill accreditation was lost.
The school is not the main reason why San Miguel attracts so many artists and retirees today. In fact, it is peripheral to life in San Miguel at best.
Although the school’s turbulent heyday lasted only a few years, the GIs who studied there remembered San Miguel fondly. When they began reaching retirement age, more than a few decided to return. They bought the old, dilapidated colonial structures and fixed them up to create the historic center as it exists today.
Self Portrait Motorcycle by Barry Wolfryd of Mexico City, who was a student at the San Miguel school in the 1970s. He did this self-portrait while a student.
As their numbers grew, businesses sprang up and infrastructure was improved, starting a snowball effect that continues to this day. San Miguel is now a tourist destination and a World Heritage Site. Condé Nast Traveler named it the best city in the world to live. The town now attracts tourists, as well as moneyed Mexicans who buy weekend homes here.
Despite the near irrelevance of the Instituto Allende and the influx of non-artist retirees, art remains an important element of life in San Miguel. The returning GIs never lost their interest, whether they had pursued a career in art or not, they certainly were involved with it (again).
To this day the town attracts Mexican and foreign artists of retirement age and younger. The concentration of residents with the economic means to buy art means that San Miguel is Mexico’s second most important domestic art market after Mexico City.
But the picture isn’t entirely rosy. Aside from the urban sprawl and traffic that just seems to be getting worse, the center has been derided as a “Disneyland” version of Mexico — too perfect. Most locals cannot afford to live there and have moved to the less scenic periphery. These negatives have prompted another search for the “authentic Mexican experience” in places such as Coatepec, Veracruz, and San Cristóbal, Chiapas, whose residents worry that too many “gringos” will lead their town to San Miguel’s fate.
There is also the idea that artists in San Miguel are “wannabes,” retirees that never picked up a brush before and envision themselves as great artists after a few classes. Certainly, there are some that fit the description, but most selling artists in San Miguel have been trained outside the city and in the case of foreigners, in their home countries. Some have had full-time careers as artists, simply changing location. Many who did not dedicate themselves to artistic production full-time had worked in related careers such as advertising and design.
The art school remains important historically. It is a classic “if you build it, they will come” story, but it also serves to show the allure this country has for those with creative inclinations.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears weekly on Mexico News Daily.
Rodríguez and her mother are raffling the billy goat to pay for her next operation.
Law student Carmen Rodríguez Domínguez has a unique fundraising strategy to help her pay for a desperately needed kidney operation. She’s raffling off a goat.
On Thursday, Rodríguez, 32, announced the raffle on her Facebook page, posting a photo of a spry-looking brown billy goat named Cruz, along with a photo of her debit card so purchasers could deposit money to her account.
One hundred tickets were sold at 50 pesos each, all were spoken for by Friday evening, raising a total of 5,000 pesos toward the cost of her operation, which is 50,000 pesos (about US $2,230).
The young woman’s ordeal began on June 1 when she went to the doctor while suffering excruciating pain. Tests and X-rays showed that her right kidney was infected and not functioning correctly.
“I left crying with my mom, so many things were going through my head, I came out of the doctor looking for a urologist, and she confirmed that my kidney was damaged and was not working,” she wrote on Facebook.
By June 5 she had undergone her first operation.
Another surgery was performed on June 17, depleting the family’s savings.
Rodríguez, who lives in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, is currently catheterized, which she says causes her significant pain. The third operation needs to happen very soon, she says, within the next six weeks before the catheters need to be replaced.
The idea to raffle off a goat was her mother’s, Rodríguez says, and mother and daughter, who have already raffled off a cake, plan to continue raising funds by selling meals and desserts in order to meet their financial goal.
Classmates have also created a Facebook page, Unidos Con Carmen, where friends, acquaintances and even strangers have donated to her cause.
“I know that we are in difficult times, that some of us do not have a good job, but I know that the contributions people have made come from the bottom of their hearts and I personally thank them infinitely for their support,” she wrote on Facebook.
Rodríguez’s bank, Santander, got wind of her situation and yesterday posted to Twitter that more information would be forthcoming as to how they could help her meet her 50,000-peso goal.
They also indicated that they would like to award the young woman a scholarship.
“We have already talked to her and soon we will be offering support,” said Marcela Espinosa, Santander’s director of sustainability. “We know there is always an opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life and our best wish is for Carmen to get better.”
Rodríguez, an A student, said that before she became ill she was focused on finishing her studies and starting her career, which has been temporarily derailed by her medical problems.
“From my heart, I thank everyone who has helped me,” she said, “because I very much want to live.”
Riot police were called in to control Guanajuato march.
A large squadron of police in riot gear moved against a protest by families of missing persons in Guanajuato in the state’s capital city Friday.
Photos and footage of the incident show women holding up photos of their missing loved ones as police, clad in helmets and carrying shields, forced them back.
At least five women were arrested in the clash, and one suffered a leg injury after a struggle with officers.
As news of the arrests and injuries spread, the Mexico office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on the state government to investigate and respect the families’ right to demonstrate.
Through its social media accounts, the National Human Rights Commission also condemned police actions, urging the governor to respond to them and “address the legitimate issues they are claiming.”
Around 8 a.m. Friday, family members of missing persons who belong to the group “A Tu Encuentro,” or “Until You Are Found,” walked from the bus station, located near the toll booth on the Guanajuato-Silao highway, to the Santa Fe roundabout at the entrance to the city.
Wearing t-shirts and carrying banners with the names and faces of their missing daughters, sons, husbands and fathers, the protesters took to the street in what was initially a silent march. The demonstrators, the vast majority of whom were women, wore masks and respected social distancing as they marched.
Upon reaching the roundabout, cars were parked in the street to block vehicular traffic and marchers called on Governor Diego Sinhué Rodríguez Vallejo to take action.
“Diego, we have arrived, we are waiting for you, we have always sought dialogue. We have told you that our missing family members deserve to be treated with respect,” they proclaimed while denouncing the appointment of Héctor Díaz Ezquerra to the state’s Missing Persons Commission. “We want an explanation of why you selected a business administrator to be in charge of the commission. We will not accept it because that person is not capable,” said one of the women as the protest began.
They were met by police who asked them to move the vehicles blocking traffic and continue their protest in the roundabout’s plaza, but the women said they would not budge until the governor appeared to address their concerns.
In response, officers called in tow trucks and began pushing protesters out of the street as several struggles ensued.
In addition to the arrests, paramedics were called to attend to a woman who had allegedly been pushed to the ground by police.
Lawyer and activist Roberto Saucedo Pimentel said a claim for abuse of authority by police may be filed by the women who were “re-victimized by the state government” in the incident.
The federal government did not update its weekly coronavirus “stoplight” map for the first time since its debut in May, and coronavirus czar Hugo López-Gatell puts the blame squarely on states for inconsistencies in their data.
“We can’t present a national stoplight map when there are gaps in our information,” he said.
“There are states in which the information we have on hand as reported through official channels, such as laboratory data, is not consistent. We are going to evaluate this with the states and rethink things in this regard,” López-Gatell said in Friday evening’s press conference.
“If there is a deficiency of information because the data is not produced on time, or worse because it is distorted, that is why it is not possible to have appropriate monitoring,” López-Gatell noted, adding that one factor in inaccurate data is the lag in reporting testing results.
Although López-Gatell would not say which states had supplied incorrect data, he did note that in the past week that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose 29% in Quintana Roo, 17% in Campeche and 15% in Yucatán, and expressed his concern about states reopening too quickly.
Meanwhile, Cristian Morales of the Pan American Health Organization indicated that Mexico is experiencing an “extremely complex situation” and noted that the population is confused by the stoplight map. It is meant to be a guide for when states should reopen and relax coronavirus restrictions and has been criticized by state governors in the past.
Morales told the United Nations Information Center in Mexico that the health emergency is troubling because Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to increase and because of the economic and social impact of the pandemic.
A World Health Organization (WHO) official said it was important to strike a balance between containing the disease and allowing economic activity.
“The blind reopening, regardless of the data, could lead to situations that nobody wants,” said Mike Ryan, executive director for health emergencies, when asked specifically about the situation in Mexico.
“We fully understand the pressure that some governments are suffering, but I recommend seeking a balance between the containment of the coronavirus and the reopening of activities,” he said.
“Reopening in moments of intense community transmission leads to difficult situations that can affect an entire country” and push health systems like Mexico’s to the limit, the WHO expert warned.
The daily tally of coronavirus cases and deaths. Deaths are numbers reported and not necessarily those that occurred each day. milenio
López-Gatell responded Friday to Ryan’s comments by reminding the evening press briefing that it had been been made clear “at all times that there was a risk of new outbreaks as a consequence of a resumption of activities.”
But it was the federal government that began announcing economic reopenings in mid-May amid warnings that it was too early. One notable announcement was that over 300 coronavirus-free municipalities would be free to ease restrictions.
A month later the list of so-called “municipalities of hope” had dwindled to just 60 as the virus continued to spread.
López-Gatell’s announcement regarding the delay in releasing the stoplight map will likely draw further criticism of the federal government’s tendency to blame others for the health crisis and its effects. The first came from former president Felipe Calderón.
Instead of recognizing the errors associated with limited testing, a hasty economic reopening and the “bad example” set by authorities who refuse to wear face masks, “now they want to blame the states,” said Calderón, who accused the government of prioritizing “political polarization” over public health.
According to the Ministry of Health, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Mexico rose Friday by 6,891 for a total of 289,174. There were another 665 deaths reported, bringing that total to 34,191.
One week ago, when the federal coronavirus map was last updated, 17 states were at the orange level, indicating high risk, and 15 were at the red, maximum risk level.
Yesterday, Mexico City and Quintana Roo declared their own stoplight designations. The former said the city would remain high-risk orange but some areas with high case numbers would be designated maximum risk red effective next week.
Quintana Roo, declared orange last week, announced that the southern region of the state would revert to red, meaning restrictions would be applied in Felipe Carillo Puerto, José María Morelos, Bacalar and Othón P. Blanco.
Artists Standing Strong Together, a collective of independent artists founded in March to provide support during the coronavirus pandemic, has announced a fourth night of storytelling aimed at adults.
Mexican storyteller and musician Valentina Ortiz, from La Huacana, Michoacán, will join storytellers from across the United States in a Zoom event that will also be live-streamed on YouTube. Viewers are invited to bring a beer, and their ears, to the watch party.
Promotional material for the event describes the art of storytelling as a “verbal movie, creating images in your mind through the turn of a phrase, the use of words and the facial expressions and gestures” of those telling the tales. Scheduled story topics include sex, murder, romance and obsession, among others.
The event is free and begins at 10 p.m. ET on Saturday. Zoom participants must register in advance and will be invited to be part of the session’s virtual after-party.
