Baja California is one of Mexico’s hardest-hit states in terms of the coronavirus, but as numbers continue to spike Governor Jaime Bonilla Valdez has made the controversial decision to allow 100 previously shuttered manufacturing companies to reopen as of Monday.
This despite Bonilla’s Facebook post on April 17 urging all nonessential businesses to shut down, and accusing the owners of those who didn’t of “preferring to sacrifice their workers instead of their profits.”
Members of labor unions and social activists took to the streets on Friday, International Workers’ Day, to protest what they called a “criminal decision” which would put 40,000 workers back on the job in the middle of the pandemic.
One protester held up a sign addressed to the governor reading “In BC workers are not disposable.”
Government officials defended the decision, arguing that maintaining the supply chain is essential for Baja California’s economy.
“When this pandemic started, we had 1,725,000 jobs in Baja California,” said Economy and Tourism Minister Mario Escobedo Carignan, who cited a study predicting the coronavirus crisis would cost the state 100,000 jobs. “And our governor said, ‘What if it didn’t? What if we do something about it? What if we get together with companies, workers, and together we fight to keep the jobs and continue the economic growth that we were already experiencing?'”
For example, Escobedo argued, people need to watch television, and for that to happen factories need to produce parts, cardboard companies need to produce boxes to put televisions in. These kinds of factories have become essential, and “we must take care of the supply chain,” he said.
As of Saturday, Baja California had recorded 1,569 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 232 deaths.
An armed man hands out provisions in Zapopan, Jalisco.
Authorities have been noticeably absent or inactive as presumed drug traffickers continue to distribute basic food items and supplies to poor citizens while openly proclaiming their gang affiliations and carrying automatic rifles in several municipalities in Jalisco.
Videos posted to social media during the week showed armed men claiming to belong to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) handing out bags of supplies to grateful residents. In none of the videos are any of the men approached by police or other authorities regarding the open carrying of illegal weapons.
Run by notorious gang leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, the CJNG is one of the most violent criminal organizations in Mexico, wreaking havoc both in and outside of Jalisco in recent years at it moves to expand its territory.
In a video filmed outside the Constitution Cultural Center in Zapopan, the men hand out supplies with one hand while holding assault rifles in the other. One woman doesn’t even bat an eye at the firearms as she gratefully receives her donation. A narco ballad titled Sincerely, El Mencho can be heard playing in the background.
Once out of supplies, the armed men climbed into two vehicles and left the scene without any problems from authorities.
Many social media users denounced the fact that the presumed drug traffickers were allowed to carry out such actions unimpeded while police in Guadalajara and the nearby municipality of Tala were in the streets stopping people for not wearing face masks.
Similar events were recorded in the municipality of Tonalá, where a video captured a police car driving in the background behind a presumed gang member handing out supplies. The police did not stop.
In Tecalitlán, where police are believed to have turned over three Italian citizens to the cartel in 2018, presumed gang members filmed their philanthropic activities with a drone on Wednesday. Long lines of needy citizens were reported in the gang’s stronghold of Tuxpan as well.
“Thank you, Mr. Mencho for the supplies that you gave us here in Tecalitlán,” citizens said in the videos filmed by the presumed gang members.
But the criminal organization has a presence far beyond the Jalisco state lines. Some of the videos that went viral during the week showed CJNG members handing out supplies to people as far away as Guatemala.
Although the Jalisco state government called the incidents “isolated,” they were not the first of such charitable actions by normally violent drug trafficking organizations.
Desafío al Estado: El Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, lidereado por Nemesio Oceguera, reparte despensas en esa entidad y en otras. “Gracias, señor Mencho”, le agradecen. pic.twitter.com/uxEE1wN5Ro
— Alvaro Delgado Gómez (@alvaro_delgado) May 1, 2020
When asked about the incidents, Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez said that “it’s just what these groups want … to call attention [to themselves] and continue lending importance to these events.”
His administration announced on Friday that a group of Jalisco citizens who now reside in the United States have offered to collaborate with the state government to carry out a donation matching campaign. Alfaro’s government has committed to match every box of supplies donated by the citizens who have emigrated.
Covid-19 cases by state as of Friday evening. milenio
As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus exceeds the 20,000 mark, Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) hospitals will provide treatment to uninsured residents of Mexico City, one of the epicenters for the virus.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum hopes the measure will ease the burden on other hospitals in the city.
As of Friday, those hospitals were collectively operating at 68% of their capacity, but some are overwhelmed and have had to turn patients away.
Symptomatic patients need only make a call to Locatel, Sheinbaum explained, where they will be assessed by medical personnel and directed to the appropriate IMSS hospital if deemed necessary.
The move comes on the heels of yesterday’s announcement by the Ministry of Health that 1,515 new cases of the coronavirus had been confirmed in a single day for a total of 20,733. Mexico City had the most, with 5,548, followed by the state of México (3,422), Baja California (1,569) and Tabasco (1,066).
Covid-19 deaths as of Friday evening. milenio
Most of the Mexico City cases are in Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero. Yesterday saw a 7.9% increase in confirmed cases in the nation’s capital.
However, some parts of the country have a brighter outlook. Cancún, Quintana Roo, is close to emerging from the pandemic, said Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell on Friday, and is seeing a drop in the number of confirmed cases.
While there is “light at the end of the tunnel,” López-Gatell said, the change in no way means that social distancing guidelines should be abandoned.
Covid-19 deaths across the country now total 1,972, up from 1,859 on Thursday.
The guide also stipulates that a patient's wishes regarding treatment must be respected.
The federal government’s General Health Council (CSG) has updated its bioethical guide, removing age as a factor when doctors are forced to make decisions about which patients should take priority when medical resources are limited.
However, it now states that the only factor that should be considered when allocating limited resources such as ventilators is a patient’s chance of survival.
“Patients with a greater probability of survival with the assistance of critical medicine are prioritized over those with a lesser probability,” the guide says.
If two or more patients are deemed to have the same chance of survival, medical personnel in the first instance should take into account that the Covid-19 fatality rate is not the same between the sexes.
Male coronavirus patients have died at a much higher rate than females, meaning that the bioethical guide recommends treatment of the latter be prioritized when there is no other way to distinguish between chances of survival.
If doctors are trying to decide who should be prioritized when the patients being considered are of the same sex, first priority should go to “people who belong to vulnerable groups,” the guide says. “As a last resort,” decisions about who should be prioritized for treatment should be taken “randomly and transparently.”
The CSG guide also says that patients must be made aware of their diagnosis and prognosis as well as any limitations faced by the hospital where they are being treated with respect to the availability of medical resources.
In addition, “patients must have the opportunity to make their wishes known about the treatments and interventions they want,” the guide says.
Patients must have the opportunity to make medical personnel aware of any advance healthcare directive, or living will, they might have. An advance healthcare directive is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their care if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves due to illness or incapacity.
“The wish not to be subjected to a certain treatment must always be respected,” the guide says. “For example, any instruction ‘not to intubate’ or ‘not to resuscitate’ must be recorded in [the patient’s] clinical file and be respected.”
His mobile rang. Archaeologist Rodrigo Esparza tapped Reply. On the other end was Cecila González, one of Mexico’s leading experts in ceramic restoration. “Guess what?” she said. “I have a surprise for you. Your jar is ready to go home.”
Esparza was indeed surprised, because he had turned some 350 fragments of the huge clay pot over to Guadalajara’s highly respected Escuela de Conservación y Restauración (ECRO) 12 years earlier and had almost forgotten about it.
The story began in 2008, when Esparza and other archaeologists were hard at work excavating a plot of land just south of western Mexico’s 2,000-year-old Guachimontones circular pyramids. The site had been chosen for the construction of a large interactive museum.
“We chose that land,” Esparza told me, “because we believed there was nothing of archaeological importance there, but we could not have been more mistaken.”
Naturally the archaeologists decided to check their assumptions and as soon as they began digging beneath the surface, they discovered that a 10-square-meter section of the new museum site was unusually rich in artifacts. Within a few months they unearthed bowls, jewelry, figurines, six burials, five ovens and six big urns, one of them a meter high by a meter wide.
Archaeologists Cyntia Ramírez and Rodrigo Esparza unearthing pots and bones.
“Something curious happened when we first peeked into the biggest urn,” I learned from archaeologist Cyntia Ramirez, then head of field operations. “We started out slowly removing the top layers of dirt inside the pot, which appeared to be at least 500 years old and, to our surprise, we began to pull brightly colored strands of cloth out of it, which didn’t look the least bit ancient. It didn’t take long to discover that the fabric came from a colorful sock which had been stuffed into the container by a modern pack rat.”
“What most amazed us,” explained Rodrigo Esparza, “was that within this little 10-meter square, we found numerous pieces from every archaeological period from the pre-classic to the post-classic. This was highly important, as it seemed to indicate that — contrary to our previous beliefs — the Teuchitlán civilization did not suddenly die out. It’s obvious that this site had been continuously inhabited for over 2,000 years.”
The more they thought about it, the more the archaeologists were puzzled by the six large urns. At first they thought they might find burials, perhaps of children, in some of them, but — except for the pack rat’s sock — they were all empty. What were such large containers doing in what seemed to be typical homes of 500 to 700 years ago?
Phil Weigand, “the discoverer of the Guachimontones,” suggested that they were not funerary urns, but jars used to ferment and store tejuino, a tart beer made from sprouted corn which is still popular in some parts of Mexico. Weigand pointed to the degraded insides of the pots which he suggested had been affected by stirring with wooden paddles and by the alcohol content of the corn beer.
The Guachmontones archaeologists carefully gathered together the 350 pieces of the largest jar and took them to ECRO, which is located in downtown Guadalajara.
“We knew that restoring this jar was going to be very challenging and difficult,” Rodrigo Esparza told me, “so, instead of submitting it in a normal way — which would have cost a lot of money — it was placed in a special program designed for students doing their social service. So the pot was restored bit by bit by over five generations of students who not only put the pieces together, but also studied the pot from every angle, investigating its purpose and what it contained.”
A tejuino float with scoops of mango and lemon sorbet.
This provoked so much interest that one of Esparza’s students at the Colegio de Michoacán, Miguel Novillo, decided to do his thesis on what he calls the Guachimontones Fermentation Jars(tinajas de fermentación).
Scraping off the sediments at the bottom of these pots, Novillo did a chemical analysis, revealing the presence of carbohydrates and starches from maize (Zea mays). “I should mention,” says Esparza, “that this analysis showed that those starches had to have been boiled.”
Novillo also found starch from camotes (sweet potatoes) which, he suggested, had been added because they contain a high percentage of sugar, which would have sped up the fermentation process. A variety of analyses proved that some of these jars were used over a fire for cooking tejuino, while others were employed for the fermentation process and still others for storage of the final product. It was also proven that these jars could not have been used to store water or grain.
It is interesting to note that the big jar found in 2008 weighs about 100 kilos empty, so that when it was full of liquid it must have weighed around 200 kilos (441 pounds).
“It may seem surprising,” Esparza told me, “but it appears that jars of this size were commonly used in those days and every home may have had not just one, but two or three jars this size. I should mention, by the way, that in our excavations we have normally found these pots all in pieces, not well preserved like our big jar, which we found 85% intact.”
More studies may determine whether tejuino was the staple drink of every family or was reserved for what Phil Wiegand called mitotes, fiestas similar to those which the Huicholes still hold today.
[soliloquy id="109517"]
After 12 years of studies and restoration, the Guachimontones Fermentation Jar was in process of being packed up for shipment to the Guachimontones Interpretive Center when Covid-19 struck. ECRO was forced to close its doors and the museum stopped receiving visitors.
“When things go back to normal,” commented Rodrigo Esparza, “the jar will be delivered to the museum and we hope to create an exhibition on tejuino and the other fermented drinks used in pre-Hispanic times and during the first years of the colonial period.”
Tejuino, I should add, was not only popular in pre-Hispanic times, but is still a favorite hot-weather drink in Jalisco, Chihuahua and other places. To find out how it’s made, I had only to drive five minutes from my home outside Guadalajara to the nearest tejuino stand (in the town of La Venta del Astillero), where tejuino brewer Osmar Carmona outlined the procedure:
“First we remove kernels from the corncob and wet them until they sprout. Then we put them into a pot and add water and cal (powdered lime). This we boil, cover, and allow to cool overnight. Now we drain the liquid, rub the fibrous hull off the kernels of corn and grind up the inner parts. Finally we add piloncillo [Mexican brown sugar] and boiled water and give this a chance to ferment a bit.”
To the resulting cappuccino-colored beverage Carmona adds lime juice, scoops of mango and lemon nieve (sorbet) and, of course, a sprinkle of chile powder.
Osmar Carmona’s tejuino is for family use and he says it contains no alcohol, but other tejuino sellers allow the drink to ferment more than “a bit” and it could have an alcohol content of 4-5% This stronger version of the drink is called tesgüino which, for the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) and other groups, is and has always been a sacred, ritual beverage.
“El tejuino is not only refreshing, it’s good for your health,” Carmona told me as he handed me my bebida. “If you drink it regularly, it will replace the pathogenic bacteria in your colon with probiotics: live bacteria and yeasts that are good for you and will keep your tripas healthy.”
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
All aboard: Carlos Slim has won the second contract to be awarded for the railroad project.
A consortium controlled by billionaire businessman Carlos Slim has secured the second contract awarded by the federal government for the construction of the US $8-billion Maya Train railroad project in Mexico’s southeast.
The National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), which is managing the project, announced on Thursday that Slim’s company Cicsa and Spanish construction firm FCC – of which the Mexican magnate is the largest shareholder – were successful with their bid to build the 222-kilometer section of the railroad between Escárcega and Calkiní in Campeche.
The consortium submitted an 18.55-billion peso (US $752.8-million) bid for the contract, which Fonatur administration and finance director Arturo Ávalos said was the best among 15 proposals.
The companies’ proposal received an overall rating of 94.06 out of 100 – 45.13 for the technical proposal and 48.93 for the financial one.
Fonatur said that Cisca and FCC will begin construction on May 12 pending approval from the Health Ministry. That would appear to be a formality given that Fonatur chief Rogelio Jiménez Pons said last month that President López Obrador had ordered the continuation of the Maya Train project despite the worsening coronavirus pandemic.
The awarding of the contract to the Slim-led consortium came a week after Fonatur announced that a consortium led by Portugal’s Mota-Engil and the majority state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) had won the contract to build the first section of track between Palenque, Chiapas, and Escárcega.
The consortium presented a 15.5-billion peso bid for the 227-kilometer section, beating out 13 other proposals. Fonatur said that it would be responsible for drawing up the master plan for the project, building the tracks and purchasing all required materials.
The CCCC has faced corruption charges and was blacklisted by the World Bank in 2011 for fraudulent practices related to a highway project in the Philippines but Fonatur said that the proposal it presented along with Mota-Engil and three other companies was the best in terms of both cost and quality.
The United Nations Office for Project Services reviewed all 14 bids for the Palenque-Escárcega section and agreed that the Portuguese/Chinese bid was the best.
Slim’s Cicsa/FCC consortium has also submitted one of 16 bids to Fonatur to build the third section of the Maya Train between Calkiní and Izamal, Yucatán. Fonatur is due to announce the winner of that contract on May 15.
The Maya Train, President López Obrador’s signature infrastructure project, will connect cities and towns in five states: Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, Quintana Roo and Chiapas.
The 1,500-kilometer railroad, endorsed by a controversial consultation last December, is scheduled for completion in 2023.
Puebla Congress will consider the bill, which has been described as violating freedom of speech.
Residents of Puebla who disseminate fake news during an emergency situation could go to jail for up to 12 years under a proposal presented by two state lawmakers.
The state penal code already stipulates that media organization employees who publish fake news during a crisis can face prison terms and fines.
Now, Gabriel Biestro, a deputy with the Morena party, and Nora Merino Escamilla of the Social Encounter Party want people who spread fake news on social media and other online platforms to face the same penalties.
According to the proposal they sent to the Puebla Congress, the same sanctions applicable to media workers will apply to anyone who “disseminates or transmits false information via any means of communication or digital platforms” that causes fear or confusion among the public, or discredits or contradicts actions or policies implemented by the state.
The penalties would be applicable during health emergencies, serious epidemics and all other situations of emergency or catastrophe that affect the country, the proposal says. Sharing a news article on Facebook or Twitter that is deemed to be fake would be sufficient reason for penalties to be imposed.
“As human beings we tend to believe that there is a reason for something if we see others promote it,” the proposal says.
“If we see a crowd of people running, our natural inclination is to run as well. Historically, this response might have helped us to avoid predators; in the digital world of today, it makes us more vulnerable.”
The proposal was denounced by press freedom advocacy organization Article 19, which said it would constitute an “illegitimate“ and “unnecessary” law. It would violate the right to freedom of speech and freedom of information, it said.
The Puebla Journalists’ Network also criticized the proposal, asserting that it promotes censorship of those who question or disagree with actions taken by authorities.
The death toll from tainted alcohol in the municipalities of Mazamitla and Tamazula, Jalisco, has risen from 16 to 21.
Some consumers of a brand of cane alcohol called El Chorrito began experiencing symptoms such as dizziness, blurred vision, seizures and severe abdominal pain on Saturday. Initial reports said 32 people were poisoned, half of whom died in the first few days of drinking the product.
But the number of poisonings has now risen to 65 people, and 44 of those have required hospitalization.
The state Health Ministry (SSJ) announced that it has intensified its investigation and performed studies on confiscated bottles of El Chorrito.
The results showed that the liquor contained a dangerously high level of methanol, according to the head of the Commission for Protection Against Health Risks, Denis Santiago Hernández.
The commission is investigating the entire supply chain of El Chorrito, from production to distribution to final point of sale in order to discover the origin of the tainted alcohol.
So far, the majority of the poisoning cases have been in Mazamitla and Tamazula, but one person from Sahuayo, Michoacán, has also been poisoned. Those who have died ranged in age from 31 to 83, and those who have been poisoned range from 22 to 83 years old.
The mayors of Mazamitla and Tamazula said they have carried out informational campaigns and seized 700 liters of alcohol.
The coronavirus epidemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders could be having an effect, however slight, on Mexico’s epidemic of violence.
Official preliminary reports show that during the month of April the number of homicide victims decreased by 3.6% to 2,492, making it Mexico’s third-deadliest month since the country began keeping records in 1997.
In March, the murder rate hit its all-time peak of 2,585.
April 20 was this year’s most violent day with 114 homicides, and the monthly average was 83 per day.
Data gathered by the newspaper Milenio reveals that the deadliest states last month were Guanajuato, the state of México, Chihuahua, Jalisco, Baja California and Michoacán. The México state, despite having the second-highest number of murders, saw its homicide rate drop by 16.4%, whereas Guanajuato with 311 deaths was up 1.61% from March. Chihuahua with 192 deaths also saw an increase with 5.21% more deaths.
The lowest numbers were recorded in Tlaxcala, Nayarit, Yucatán, Aguascalientes, Baja California Sur and Campeche.
So far this year a total of 9,579 people have been murdered in Mexico, while 1,859 have died of the coronavirus, according to Milenio’s figures.
The official numbers for April won’t be released until May 20.
A signed letter from President López Obrador to loan recipients violated the constitution.
President López Obrador drew fire this week from the National Electoral Institute (INE), which determined that he had improperly promoted his image on letters to recipients of government stimulus loans for small businesses.
After complaints from opposition political parties, the INE determined that the president had done so by signing loan letters with his name and title.
It was in direct violation of Article 134 of the Mexican constitution which specifies that government messages may not include names, images voices or symbols that personally promote any public servant, and that government communiqués are to be used solely for informational purposes.
The INE ordered that the letter, which has already been distributed to some 40,000 businesses that qualify for the 25,000-peso small business loans, be altered to remove the president’s name and signature for future loan recipients, and that the language be modified to clarify that the funds come from the federal government alone.
Mexico has approved 700,000 such loans, intended to help small business owners continue to pay salaries to employees during the coronavirus emergency.
A photo and a flattering description of the mayor on Tapachula water bills.
The president said Friday morning his name would be removed from the letter.
“It was a letter explaining what [loan recipients] have to do and why we have confidence in them; I signed the letter and included my name. They [the electoral institute] didn’t like it so the decision was taken to remove my name so they can calm down.”
The institute is one of several arms-length government institutions over which the López Obrador administration has attempted to exert control.
Meanwhile, López Obrador is not the only politician seeking to use government communications about the coronavirus for political gain. The INE noted that it is investigating several other public servants who have similarly violated the stipulations of Article 134.
A photo of the newly-appointed mayor of Tapachula, Chiapas, and a message extolling her qualities were included on water bills sent to residents.
“Selected for her capabilities and for embodying the virtues required by the municipality of Tapachula, to be governed by a sensible and prudent woman who seeks the common good, where we all win and live in a safe, free and sovereign place,” read the description of Rosa Irene Urbina Castañeda on the back of the bill.
The tactic did not go unnoticed. “The change in priorities derived from the health emergency cannot translate into personalized promotion under the guise of support for those who need it,” cautioned Sofía Martínez De Castro León of the Electoral and Citizen Participation Institute in Chiapas. “This is a reminder to respect the rules and avoid violations of [the constitution].”
