Increased calls for more coronavirus testing before returning to ‘new normal’

May 14, 2020

As Mexico moves toward a “new normal” while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to grow, an increasing number of experts are calling for testing to be ramped up in order to detect more cases and limit new outbreaks of the disease.

The federal government revealed a three-phase plan on Wednesday that will see social distancing measures gradually lifted on a state by state basis depending on the severity of their outbreaks starting on June 1.

But experts warn that reopening the economy and allowing people to return to their normal day-to-day activities without first testing more widely for Covid-19 could lead to a second wave of infections that is worse than the first.

Alejandro Macías, an infectious disease doctor, former government health commissioner and member of the National Autonomous University’s coronavirus commission, highlighted that even though the government is taking steps to reopen the economy, Mexico is still in the most critical phase of the pandemic.

He told the newspaper El Universal that it is unlikely that Mexico has already reached the peak of the pandemic and that without more testing – almost 150,000 people, or about 1,100 per 1 million inhabitants, have been tested to date – there will inevitably be large numbers of new cases.

Wednesday's death toll was the second highest yet recorded. — At 294, Wednesday’s death toll was the second highest yet recorded. Tuesday’s figure was the highest. milenio

“The risk of not testing but wanting to go back to normal is that there will be outbreaks not just in the community but in industries, as happened in the meat industry in the United States,” Macías said.

The risk of Covid-19 reappearing in parts of the country where outbreaks were thought to have been controlled is very high because nowhere near 100% of the population has been infected, he said. That means that there is still a very large number of potential hosts for the virus.

“I believe that the reasoning for doing so few tests cannot be maintained,” Macías said, referring to the government’s assurances that it can effectively monitor the development of the pandemic via its epidemiological surveillance system.

“That Mexico is one of the countries that has done the fewest tests cannot be defended, … I believe we must do more,” he said.

Rafael Lozano, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and a former director of health information at Mexico’s Health Ministry, asserted that testing helps save lives and that lockdown measures cannot be lifted without first significantly increasing the number of people who have been tested.

“Timely diagnoses are needed in order to be able to identify people who require isolation and treatment,” he said, adding that the plan to lift social distancing restrictions shouldn’t be developed until after widespread testing has taken place.

If testing is not ramped up before restrictions are eased, the pandemic could worsen in areas already suffering from large outbreaks, Lozano said. If restrictions are lifted “hastily,” he added, “there is no reason to think that there won’t be exponential spread.”

The academic charged that authorities should wait for at least two weeks to pass without any coronavirus-related deaths in a certain area before relaxing isolation measures.

Rodolfo de la Torre, director of social development at the Espinosa Yglesias Study Center, a Mexico City think tank, also said that more testing is needed before the government declares an end to national social distancing, which is set to be superseded by state-based restrictions at the start of next month.

A return to “normality” cannot even be thought of without first performing more tests, he said.

“That’s the only way … to avoid infections en masse. … The government is acting rashly in the return to normality; hopefully they’ll take the suggestions of academics and epidemiologists into account and apply them in their plan. … A strategy that looks after the health of Mexicans has to be drawn up because a new outbreak … could be worse than what we’re going through now,” de la Torre said.

The government’s announcement of its color-coded “stoplight” system to determine each state’s readiness to return to the “new normal” came just hours before the Health Ministry reported that the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Mexico had passed 40,000 and that the death toll had exceeded 4,000.

Coronavirus case numbers as of Wednesday. milenio

At Wednesday night’s press briefing, Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reported 1,862 new coronavirus cases, increasing the total number of accumulated cases to 40,186, and 294 fatalities, lifting the death toll to 4,220.

The daily death toll was the second highest since the first coronavirus-related fatality was reported on March 18. The highest death toll, and the biggest single-day increase in case numbers, were reported a day earlier on Tuesday.

Based on confirmed cases and deaths, the fatality rate in Mexico is now 10.5 per 100 cases, a figure that has crept up steadily in recent weeks. Mexico City, the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus crisis, has now recorded more than 1,000 coronavirus-related deaths and is approaching 11,000 confirmed cases, according to official data.

Eleven of Mexico’s 32 states have triple-figure death tolls, with Baja California, México state and Tabasco reporting the most after the capital.

Of the more than 40,000 confirmed cases, 9,378 are currently considered active, a figure that has increased over the past two days after declining for the first time in almost three weeks on Monday. Alomía said that there are also 24,856 suspected cases of Covid-19 across the country.

Later in the press briefing, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that the government is prepared to change its plan to reopen the economy and return to a semblance of normality if it sees that case numbers are spiking considerably.

“I want to make it very clear that the government of Mexico has the attitude that if something goes wrong, … we’ll change course according to what is needed,” he said.

López-Gatell said that the government is aiming to identify the optimal time to relax restrictions in different parts of the country, asserting that there are no established guidelines or World Health Organization document that give concrete advice on the subject.

“We’re still looking for the moment,” he said, adding that state governors will be able to take their own decisions about which restrictions should be lifted and which should remain in place.

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

New investigation suggests death toll 5 times higher than reported in Mexico City

MND Staff

May 13, 2020

Reports that Mexico City crematoriums were being overwhelmed first appeared on the weekend.

The coronavirus death toll in Mexico City is five times higher than federal government data shows, claims a report by British media organization Sky News.

Published on Wednesday, the report says that crematoriums in the capital have three-day backlogs of bodies as deaths surge in both Mexico City and neighboring México state.

Sky said that an investigations team working in Mexico City gained access to morgues and storage rooms full of bodies, and they too indicate that the data presented by the federal Health Ministry at its nightly coronavirus press briefings is wrong.

According to official data presented on Tuesday, 937 people in Mexico City have died after testing positive for Covid-19 while the death toll in México state – which includes many municipalities that are part of the greater metropolitan area of the capital – is 378.

But Sky News says it was told by an official within the government – it didn’t specify whether it was referring to the federal or Mexico City government – that the Health Ministry figures are undercounting the real death rate by a factor of at least five.

The Sky News report comes five days after The New York Times reported that officials in Mexico City “have tallied more than three times as many fatalities in the capital than the [federal] government publicly acknowledges.”

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum denied that the fatality numbers reported by the federal government for the capital are wrong, while Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell – Mexico’s coronavirus point man – accused the Times of a “lack of rigor” in its reporting. For his part, President López Obrador charged that the newspaper lacks ethics.

But Sky News said that on-the-ground evidence and an analysis of fatality numbers in Mexico City and México state in early May compared to the same month in previous years support the claim that Covid-19 deaths are being drastically underreported.

It said that it accessed multiple hospital morgues as well as hospital rooms filled with bodies in bags, “lying on gurneys or even stacked on wooden pallets because the morgue fridges are already full.”

The autopsy lab of one hospital is being used to store bodies, Sky said, making the examination tables redundant. It said that none of the temporary morgues at hospitals were refrigerated and that medical staff confirmed that all the bodies stored in them were victims of Covid-19.

Sky News also said that burning capacity at every public crematorium in the capital is overwhelmed, creating a three-day backlog for cremations. Reports in Mexican media this week also said that crematoriums in Mexico City are saturated and that some families are choosing to take the bodies of their loved ones to México state for cremation.

“Black smoke billows out over cemeteries as the ovens are cremating on an industrial level in the city but the bodies don’t stop coming. … In full hazmat suits, crematorium staff are working around the clock bringing bodies to huge ovens for disposal,” Sky said.

“The number of people being cremated is staggering, as is the volume of hearses and traffic around the crematoria. The queues are endless.”

The media company said that analysis of data from 30 crematoriums in Mexico City shows that each one is currently cremating between 18 and 22 bodies per day and each has a three-day backlog.

“Taking an average number of 20 cremations, Sky has calculated the total number of cremations every day is 600. This figure does not include other crematoria or burials,” the report said.

That daily number of cremations is much higher than the average of 374 deaths per day that occurred in both Mexico City and México state during the month of May between 2014 and 2018, Sky said. Logically, not all of the México state deaths would have occurred in municipalities that are part of the Mexico City metropolitan area.

In any case, Sky concluded that at least 226 extra deaths are occurring “every day in early May” in the Mexico City area and that most were probably caused by coronavirus.

The news organization said that it was told by crematorium sources that 80% to 90% of the bodies they are currently cremating are Covid-19 victims.

“Assuming 80% of the excess deaths dealt with by crematoria are due to coronavirus, Sky’s analysis suggests the government’s official figure is just 19% of the true number of Covid-19 deaths in the Mexican capital and the actual figure is around five times higher than the health department’s website would indicate — the same amount we were told by our source,” the report said.

Sky said that it asked the government to explain the discrepancy but it didn’t respond.

One man whose brother-in-law died after developing coronavirus-like symptoms told Sky that the government is “obviously lying” about the number of Covid-19 deaths.

“Here everything is a mess, they are not going to give you exact numbers, and I am not just talking about Mexico City, but the entire country,” he said while waiting for his sister outside a cemetery in the borough of Iztapalapa.

Sky also said that it spoke with senior private sector medical specialists who said that they warned the government of the impending epidemic in January but were told that there was nothing it could do.

“It has fueled speculation among people familiar with the true figures that the government is going to try to tough out the virus spread and deal with the fallout later. Failing to publish accurate death rates appears to be part of a strategy of containing panic in the worst hit poorer parts of Mexico City,” the report said.

But even as total coronavirus-related deaths approach 4,000, “the government’s failure to publish the real [fatality] numbers has left Mexico in denial of the pandemic,” Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay said in a video report that accompanied today’s article.

“The upward curve of death looks set to rocket, the health service can’t cope and social distancing, let alone lockdown, is largely being ignored in Mexico City,” the Sky report said, contradicting data presented by the Health Ministry on Tuesday night that showed that mobility in the capital has been 65% lower than normal for more than a month.

Still, “short of a vaccine or a miracle,” Sky concluded, the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on Mexico City “could be utterly catastrophic.”

Mexico News Daily

For vendors without savings, credit or support, aid group comes to the rescue

Lydia Carey

May 13, 2020

This Mexico City flower vendor was getting desperate when a volunteer turned up with a bag of food supplies.

Vendors. Thousands of them roam the Mexico City subways, sell tacos on the avenues, and offer artisanal trinkets to passersby. They make up about 10% of the city’s population and are the lifeblood of its streets.

Already one of the most marginalized groups in Mexico City’s economy, they and their customers are being forced off the sidewalk. With little or no savings, minimal access to credit, and no stimulus package, these vendors are in economic peril.

Daniel is one of them, and sells flowers on a corner in one of the city’s central neighborhoods. When the pandemic hit he didn’t think he would make it. He was losing more money each day and getting desperate.

But then appeared a little glimmer of hope. From a friend of a friend, he learned about a network of volunteers and recipients that make up Ayuda Mutua, a local mutual aid group in the heart of Mexico’s capital. When a volunteer from the group showed up at his stand a few weeks ago with a despensa – a basket of basic foodstuffs – he reciprocated with a massive bunch of flowers.

It seems like mutual aid groups have spread almost as quickly as Covid around the globe. Two buzzwords in a world reeling from medical shortages, insufficient financial aid, and rising death tolls. From food aid to babysitting to groups like one in Puerto Rico, originally set up for Hurricane Maria disaster relief, people are leaning on their neighbors like never before.

Recipients of Ayuda Mutua's despensas. — Recipients of Ayuda Mutua’s despensas.

In Mexico City a lingering mutual aid infrastructure remains from other eras, other times when the city was paralyzed and neighbors forced to rely on each other. When the devastating 1985 earthquake hit, thousands of local volunteers dug through the rubble for survivors and set up shelters in the street. During the 2017 earthquake, local parks were converted to donation centers, cyclists rushed supplies to collapsed building sites, and volunteers made sandwich upon sandwich to feed the suddenly homeless and the emergency workers serving them.

Hannah Swenson remembers arriving in Mexico City at that very moment.

“My first time to Mexico City was a few days before the earthquake. I was staying at this little hostel near Parque Mexico … where we made sandwiches and organized things.

“Energetically, how that felt, and how the city responded, that to me is the root of mutual aid.”

Ayuda Mutua sprung from a simple conversation between Swenson and her roommate – what can we do? Will people need emotional support, they wondered, or someone to run errands and walk dogs? What would be safe to take on? Other friends felt inclined to help as well and small teams of volunteers started to organize around specific goals.

One team would reach out to already established Mexico City non-profits, one would handle calls for requests and relay them to a delivery team, one would get the word out by posting flyers all over the city.

A volunteer, left, delivers a bag of supplies to a Mexico City resident.

“It started out as friends of friends, neighbors of neighbors,” says Swenson, “but once the word got out, and people started to see us as a trusted resource, the requests multiplied.”

While she may have helped kick this thing off, Hannah quickly demurs at being called the leader or the founder of the group. Like most mutual aid organizations, this one combines horizontal organization and a leader-less structure for collective action. Decision making is led by the current group of volunteers and transparency is woven into the organization’s daily fabric – even how the money gets spent.

There may be a little more receptivity for the concept of mutual aid in Mexico, where citizens are generally distrustful of institutions and the government and have a long history of grassroots uprisings and solidarity movements. Rallying together in times of need is familiar to indigenous communities long neglected in Mexico’s countryside and neighborhoods that have banded together when local government failed.

Ayuda Mutua places no restrictions on who receives aid and who provides relief. If you need something you ask, if you have something to give you offer. Unlike similar groups in other cities, this isn’t neighborhood-exclusive. Volunteers have traveled to the far reaches of the city with dog food, diabetes medication, and even a mattress for a woman who was sleeping on the floor. They’ve helped widowed seniors and out-of-work freelancers.

As weeks of quarantine and pandemic have worn on, a basic and ubiquitous need has surfaced — weekly groceries, like the despensa that Daniel received. Boxes of basics including fresh fruits and vegetables along with staples like rice, beans and tortillas are delivered weekly to families in need. Vegetales Frescos, a third-generation family business in the city’s Central de Abasto market, is helping Ayuda Mutua organize and deliver the baskets for about US $12 apiece.

More of a response team than a non-profit, Ayuda Mutua has joined forces with other groups like Mi Valedor to work with marginalized populations in the city, and Roca de Forteleza that is helping get despensas out to seniors. They’ve also taken requests from Haciendo Calle, a support network for trans sex workers, and Casa Hogar HALAC, a home for children in Tláhuac.

Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.A volunteer, left, delivers a bag of supplies to a Mexico City resident. — Donated supplies line a table in preparation for distribution to needy residents of Mexico City.

Whatever requests they can fulfill, they do. The over $126,000 that they have raised through crowdfunding campaigns and direct giving has helped to support 289 families through the crisis, but there are still 150+ families on the despensa waiting list. Five flower vendors, including Daniel, just took part in the group’s Mother’s Day flower drive where they raised over $1,300 to be split among them.

“We envisioned a pretty dark panorama during this crisis,” says Daniel, “but thanks to the [Ayuda Mutua] platform we were able to have a great day on Sunday. The happiness of people when we delivered their bouquets was definitely part of the payment for our effort.”

This group, like most of its ilk, will likely dissipate once the crisis has passed and people get back to their regular lives. But for those affected by the support it provided, Ayuda Mutua will bring a handful of Mexico City’s millions just that much closer.

Lydia Carey is a frequent contributor to Mexico News Daily. She lives in Mexico City.

300,000 Covid-19 test kits to arrive from China on weekend: foreign minister

MND Staff

May 13, 2020

The Chinese ambassador, left and Ebrard. — The Chinese ambassador, left, and Ebrard at a meeting Tuesday in Mexico.

A shipment of 300,000 Covid-19 testing kits will arrive in Mexico from China this weekend, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard said on Wednesday.

Ebrard said in a Twitter post that the tests will arrive on the 11th of 20 planned flights between Shanghai and Mexico City to bring much-needed medical supplies.

He said in April that Mexico would buy US $56.6 million worth of supplies from China and met with Chinese ambassador to Mexico, Zhu Qingqiao, on Tuesday to thank him for his support in opening up the airbridge between the two countries and facilitating access to personal protective equipment, coronavirus testing kits and ventilators.

The additional tests will allow Mexico to ramp up testing as the government takes steps to reopen the economy even as the pandemic continues to worsen.

Only 142,204 people had been tested for Covid-19 in Mexico as of Tuesday, according to federal Health Ministry data, a figure that equates to just over 1,000 tests per 1 million inhabitants.

In contrast, Spain and Portugal have tested more than 50,000 people per 1 million inhabitants, Canada and the United States have tested more than 30,000 people per 1 million and Peru and Chile have tested more than 15,000.

Without widespread testing, many Covid-19 cases, especially mild or asymptomatic ones, will inevitably go undetected and the virus will continue to spread.

The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in March that testing, along with isolation and contact tracing, should be the “backbone” of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“You cannot fight a fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test,” he said.

Ebrard’s announcement that 300,000 tests will arrive soon comes a day after the president of the Business Coordinating Council, an influential business group, said that more tests need to be made available so that businesses in the manufacturing sector can be certain that Covid-19 won’t spread among employees.

Testing workers widely is essential to avoiding a severe second wave of infections, said Carlos Salazar Lomelín,

“We’re a country that has performed a very, very small quantity of tests. … We need the tests so that we have certainty that the workers entering workplaces are not infected,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Defining what’s essential in times of coronavirus is a challenge

Sarah DeVries

May 13, 2020

There's one bit of magic during the stress of coronavirus. The fireflies are back.

What counts as “essential?”

If there’s one thing that the coronavirus has taught us, it’s that there’s quite a variety of definitions out there — some more valid than others.

Places where people can buy food are, of course, essential. This means grocery stores and markets, but does it mean restaurants and cafés? Most would agree that it doesn’t, but at least in Xalapa, Veracruz, more than a handful have whistled and looked the other way while they remained open (but with face masks!)

And it’s not essential that they keep making food for delivery and take-out, but it is appreciated by this sushi-lover.

Hospitals are obviously essential, but what about regular doctors’ clinics? The settling of coronavirus like dust onto every part of our lives that the sun touches doesn’t erase other medical conditions that people might have had before then. My daughter is due a vaccine, but taking her into our local clinic seems unwise at best.

She could also stand a session with her kind and wise therapist, but an enclosed space with easily 1,000+ toys to handle also seems like too big a risk.

Dentists are mostly staying open, as they must. A tooth infection waits for no man.

And thank the gods that my dog’s veterinarian is still working: she had to be put to sleep last week. An unmasked friend helped me dig her grave and pack the earth in tight above her. For some things, you need to see faces.

Domestic violence cases are on the rise. Shall women die in their homes at the hands of their partners, or take their chances by going out and seeking another kind of shelter? I’d take my chances.

People are out of work. Should they definitely slow-motion die of all the problems that rapid-fire accumulate as a result of poverty, or take their chances with the coronavirus? I might take my chances there, too.

(Side note: if there’s anything that the coronavirus has made clear to me, it’s the need for a universal basic income, not just here, but in all countries. We could make the default for those earning above a certain amount to divert theirs to another collective fund, and leave them the option of “opting in” if they really, really, care deeply about the “fairness” of it. But anyway.)

Most parks have been closed off if it’s possible, but not all. We just don’t have the manpower to police the population in all possible public spaces. While two of the lakes have yellow caution tape “blocking” the entrances to the best of their abilities, the third lake is “open” because it’s just not possible to prevent people from accessing it without preventing access to the neighborhood in general.

How about the courts? I have some important things to take care of there, but they will have to wait in legal limbo in the meantime. A good friend — whose whole reason for being here is to arrive at his court-supervised visitations on Wednesdays and Saturdays — hasn’t seen his kids in over two months.

In even less-essential desires, I want to give this city a makeover, leave it positively drenched in murals, work to get some decent asphalt in for once so that new potholes don’t appear with every rainfall. Will it ever happen?

Yesterday, my 6-year-old daughter had a bit of a breakdown. She sobbed that she hated coronavirus, and that she missed her friends and going out. I cried too, because I miss all those things as well, and who can hold in their tears when their floppy outside heart is leaking pain?

The “stay inside” crowd (which I am loosely a part of) is adamant that we must respect Mother Nature’s ruthlessness, and I get it. If there’s any lesson to be extracted here, it’s that She doesn’t care about us: no matter how much we pretend we’re in control, we’re just not. Our institutions are delicate and dependent upon things we don’t control to continue working. And honestly, that’s OK: it feels like cosmic justice.

But damn. When you live alone most of the time like I do, it’s rough. People were built for people, and once in a while, that’s our downfall. It just is. We don’t get to control things even though we pretend we do, and relatively small catastrophes can send our whole pathetic little system spinning.

It’s quite easy to be preachy about staying indoors when we live with other people, especially other people that we (mostly, usually) like. When that’s not the case, sooner or later we’ll have to weigh the risk to our physical health against the very real risk of isolation-induced mental and emotional instability.

So where’s the magic in all this?

Well, fireflies are back, for one. Also really appreciating the humans in your life without the distraction of the mall is on the rise for sure.

Hold the ones you can close, and try not to judge those fleeting meetings too harshly. Emergencies don’t cease to make us human.

Sarah DeVries writes from her home in Xalapa, Veracruz.

In a month and a half, 753,000 formal sector jobs lost due to coronavirus

MND Staff

May 13, 2020

Unemployed waiters ask for economic support with a protest in Mexico City.

The coronavirus crisis has dealt a heavy blow to employment: Mexico shed more than 750,000 jobs in a period of just one and a half months between the middle of March and the end of April.

According to data from the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), 198,033 formal sector jobs were lost between March 13 and 31 and a record 555,247 disappeared in April. All told, 753,280 people lost their jobs in the seven-week period.

The loss of jobs last month was nine times greater than in April 2009 when the swine flu pandemic was in full swing and just over 60,000 people were laid off.

Almost 106,000 jobs were lost in Mexico City last month, Nuevo León shed 53,000 and 45,000 disappeared in Quintana Roo. Between 20,000 and 40,000 jobs were lost in seven states: Jalisco, México state, Guanajuato, Baja California, Veracruz, Sinaloa and Querétaro.

Data also shows that 2.2% fewer formal sector workers are registered with IMSS than a year ago, the biggest annual decline since 2009. States that are heavily dependent on tourism recorded the biggest year-over-year employment declines.

Formal sector jobs fell by 18.1% in Quintana Roo, 10.8% in Baja California Sur and 6.3% in Guerrero. Only six of Mexico’s 32 states – Tabasco, Campeche, Michoacán, Colima, Chiapas and Aguascalientes – recorded employment increases in the year to the end of April.

The construction and mining sectors have recorded the biggest job losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, IMSS data shows, but both were declared essential on Tuesday, meaning that workers who were laid off could be soon rehired.

In addition to the job losses, IMSS reported that the number of companies on its books decreased by almost 7,000 in April compared to the month before.

Analysts at Banorte said in a note that most businesses “probably suspended work or closed completely” due to the coronavirus pandemic and consequent economic downturn.

David Kaplan, a senior labor market specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, said it is likely that there will be more job losses this month but predicted that the number won’t be as high as in April.

Jesuswaldo Martínez, a researcher at the Senate’s Belisario Domínguez Institute, said that further job losses in May are inevitable but he too predicted that they won’t be as high as those seen last month.

By the end of the year, about 1 million people registered with IMSS will have lost their jobs, he said, predicting that if GDP falls by more than 7% this year, the hit to employment will be even greater.

“The International Monetary Fund says there could be 1.5 million [job losses], including people in the informal sector,” Martínez said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Map with color-coded ‘stoplights’ will help determine economic reopening

Susy Buchanan

May 13, 2020

The new color-coded map shows the alert level and a trending indicator by state. — The stoplight map shows the alert level and a trending indicator by state.

The government revealed a three-phase plan Wednesday for the eventual lifting of coronavirus restrictions and a color-coded “stoplight” system to determine each state’s readiness to return to what is being called a “new normal.”

Phase one begins on May 18, when 269 coronavirus-free municipalities across 15 states will be allowed to reopen with some restrictions.

During phase two, which also begins May 18 and ends May 31, the country will begin preparing for national social distancing measures to be lifted starting June 1 by training businesses and their employees in sanitary measures.

June marks the beginning of phase three, in which the government will assess each state’s readiness to reopen through a color-coded mapping system which will determine which restrictions are lifted and when.

“A large part of the country has no cases, which enables us to suspend national measures in favor of targeted ones,” López-Gatell explained of the lifting of national restrictions for state-by-state measures next month.

The color-coded map will show how the pandemic is progressing in different regions of the country.

States are assigned a color as well as an upward triangle if the number of cases is on the rise, a square if the number of cases is holding steady and a downward triangle if the number of cases is decreasing.

In states coded red, Economy Minister Graciela Márquez explained Wednesday morning, only essential activities will be allowed. The General Health Council announced Tuesday that this category will now include the mining, construction and automotive industries.

In orange-level states, nonessential activities may resume but at a reduced level. Public spaces can also be opened in a limited manner. Citizens who are considered particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, the elderly and those with chronic underlying conditions, may return to work. However, accommodations will have to be made, including providing them an isolated space to eat, and possibly shortening their workday.

When a state passes into the yellow phase, all essential and nonessential activities can resume without any kind of restriction. Public spaces can open with fewer restrictions and restaurants, churches, museums and theaters may reopen but at a reduced level. Vulnerable populations can also begin to ease up on precautions.

And finally, when a state is coded green, students can return to school and all restrictions will be lifted, although sanitary measures should continue in businesses and public spaces, and those particularly vulnerable to the virus should continue to take precautions.

As of Tuesday, Mexico had 38,324 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Source: El Financiero (sp), Reforma (sp), Financial Times (en)

Inflamed by phoney WhatsApp message, residents attack ‘suspects’

Susy Buchanan

May 13, 2020

The angry mob and the hearse believed to be carrying kidnappers.

Residents of Villa Victoria in the state of México blocked the highway between Toluca and Zitácuaro Tuesday and stopped two funeral home workers, who were forced to burn their hearse after false reports on social media said they were trying to kidnap children.

The workers became lost in San Agustín Altamirano while they were trying to find the home where a funeral had occurred on the weekend.

When they stopped to ask for directions, rumors began to spread on WhatsApp and other social media that they were attempting to kidnap two children.

Hundreds of angry residents caught up with the hearse, ordered the workers out of the vehicle and then forced them to set it on fire.

Later, the municipal government condemned the widespread panic caused by fake news and asked residents to check their sources before spreading rumors.

No arrests have been made and no one was injured, although the hearse was a complete loss.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Volunteer paramedic beaten, attacked with bleach in Guerrero

Cody Copeland

May 13, 2020

Red Cross workers have been among those attacked by citizens fearing the spread of coronavirus.

Two men attacked a volunteer Red Cross paramedic in Tlapa de Comonfort, Guerrero, Wednesday morning after accusing him of spreading the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

Mario Alberto Montiel Flores was returning to his home after a 24-hour shift at the local Red Cross medical center when two still unidentified men attacked him. They forced him to his knees, beat him and doused him with bleach.

“They just attacked my father. … They told him to stop spreading the coronavirus in Tlapa,” said Montiel’s son Luis Rafael, who called the attackers “ignorant and cowardly people who can’t do things out in the open.”

Attacks on health workers have been common in Mexico during the pandemic, and bleach a favored weapon to give the attacks figurative significance. A doctor in Oaxaca was attacked with bleach at the end of April by a man who said he was going to “disinfect” him.

Guerrero has seen at least eight incidents of harassment or attacks on health workers during the quarantine period, but Montiel received the worst injuries so far.

Municipal authorities reported that he is recovering from the blows he suffered and that the bleach did not harm any vital organs. He was wearing goggles at the time of the attack.

The incident sparked outrage in Tlapa, where the prosecutor’s office announced that it had opened an investigation.

Source: La Opción (sp)

If public continues to ignore quarantine, Hidalgo hospitals at risk of collapse

MND Staff

May 13, 2020

The outdoor market in Ixmiquilpan continues every Monday.

Hidalgo’s health minister has warned that the state’s hospitals could be overwhelmed if residents continue to flout stay-at-home orders and other measures to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Alejandro Efraín Benítez Herrera said that if residents fail to understand that avoiding a large increase in coronavirus cases numbers is contingent on them staying at home, practicing social distancing and maintaining good hygiene, the state’s health system “will collapse.”

He said that Hidalgo could see about 3,500 Covid-19 cases if people continue to ignore recommendations in large numbers and that as many as half that number could require hospitalization. If that were to occur, there won’t be enough beds in the state’s hospitals to accommodate all the coronavirus patients, Benítez said.

Hidalgo had recorded 603 cases – 214 of which are considered active – and 102 deaths as of Tuesday.

State government secretary Simón Vargas Aguilar said that some Hidalgo residents believe that Covid-19 is an “invention” and refuse to follow the recommendations to avoid getting sick or infecting others.

The state capital, Pachuca, has been identified as one of several cities in Mexico where a large number of people have not changed their mobility habits to limit the coronavirus spread, he said.

In Ixmiquilpan, a small city 75 kilometers northwest of Pachuca, the traditional tianguis, or outdoor market, has been set up every Monday during the health emergency period, attracting some 1,000 vendors as well as large numbers of shoppers.

Some market-goers and vendors wear face masks but other health recommendations, such as maintaining a 1.5-meter distance from others, are not widely observed, the newspaper La Jornada reported. Street markets have also continued to operate in the towns of Huejutla and Huautla.

To reduce residents’ movement around cities and towns, the Hidalgo government is seeking assistance from the authorities in the state’s 84 different municipalities, and reached an agreement to that end on Monday.

Source: La Jornada (sp)

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