Many people are dying in their homes, which might explain some of the difference.
Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll in the first eight months of 2020 was a lot higher than that reported by the federal government, according to data published Wednesday by the national statistics agency Inegi.
Inegi said that a preliminary analysis of death certificates indicated that there were 108,658 Covid-19 deaths in Mexico between January and August last year.
The figure is 44.8% higher than the 75,017 deaths that were attributed to the infectious disease in the first eight months of 2020.
Edgar Vielma Orozco, an Inegi director, said in a radio interview that the fact that a lot of Covid-19 victims have died at home rather than in hospital could partially explain the discrepancy between the Inegi and Health Ministry numbers.
“A lot of people are not dying in hospitals, they’re dying in their homes. In fact, the majority of people die in their homes – 58% die outside hospitals. That could partially explain this difference,” he said.
Similarly, Inegi president Julio Santaella told local media that the statistics agency’s count is based on death certificates while the Health Ministry uses hospital data.
Inegi also reported Wednesday that 673,260 deaths occurred between January and August 2020. The figure is 37.9% – or almost 185,000 – higher than the average number of deaths in the same period during the eight previous years.
The 108,658 Covid-19 fatalities in the January-August period account for 58.7% of the 184,917 “excess deaths.”
Covid-19 is likely to have been the cause of some of the other additional deaths although they were not classified as such. Some were likely the result of people with existing health problems not seeking out the medical attention they required out of fear that they could contract the coronavirus at hospitals and clinics.
Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter since the beginning of the pandemic, recorded the biggest spike in deaths in the January-August period followed by México state, Veracruz and Jalisco.
Inegi reported that Covid-19 was the second-leading cause of death between January and August 2020 after heart disease, which claimed almost 142,000 lives in the period. Diabetes, which caused almost 100,000 fatalities, was the third most common cause of death.
The Health Ministry has previously reported that were more than 193,000 excess deaths between January 1 and September 26, 2020. It said in October that 139,153 of the excess deaths – or 72% – were judged to have been caused by Covid-19.
Mexico’s official death toll rose to 152,106 on Tuesday with 1,743 additional fatalities – the second highest single-day total of the pandemic – but the real toll is almost certainly closer to 200,000.
The accumulated case tally increased to almost 1.79 million after 17,165 new cases were reported on Tuesday. The case tally is also widely believed to be a significant undercount as Mexico’s Covid-19 testing rate is very low compared to many other countries.
A woman in the remote Oaxaca village of San José Tenango. Photos by Joseph Sorrentino
It was an hour in on what would end up being a four-hour hike through the Sierra Juárez in Oaxaca when I discovered that my camera’s light meter wasn’t working.
I did the obvious: took the batteries out, wiped them off and put them back into the camera; the meter was still dead.
I did the obvious again. When that didn’t work, I turned the camera off and on several times, turned it upside down, shook it. I may have even given it a gentle tap or two. Nada. I was perplexed. I’d had the camera checked before the trip and swore I’d installed new batteries.
And then I simply swore.
Although I’d previously been to Mexico for a variety of projects, this was my first time heading deep into el campo: rural Mexico. I was going there because I’d written a series of articles about Mexican farmworkers in upstate New York, and after hearing their stories about what their lives were like back in Mexico, decided I needed to see conditions for myself.
Many in San José Tenango eke out a living from coffee.
A friend in Mexico City put me in contact with Instituto Maya, an organization that advocates for farmers, and they put me in contact with CEPCO, a fair-trade coffee organization based in Oaxaca that connected me with Candido and some other coffee growers in the Sierra Juárez. Candido’s mission was to make sure I made it to the Oaxaca village of San José Tenango.
To get there meant a seven-hour bus ride through switchback mountain roads at night in a hellacious thunderstorm during which the bus driver used his windshield wipers only intermittently. He did, however, blast Mexican rap music at ear-damaging levels.
After that, it was a three-hour wait in the back of a pickup truck (camioneta) in the predawn chill in Huautla, followed by another trip of just over two hours. Camionetas are essentially rural taxis that drive over mountain paths strewn with rocks and boulders. The soreness in my back, legs and butt — not to mention the bumps on my head from banging it on the overhead rail — attested to just how rocky the ride was.
I spent a few nights in Leonora’s home — she was another CEPCO member — while I waited for someone to take me deeper into the mountains. After three days, I was getting anxious to be on my way and was relieved when Leonora told me to pack my stuff. I was going with Maximiliano to San Martín.
“Take some mandarins,” she told me. “And some toilet paper.”
I was warned that the hike was strenuous, but I bike a lot and didn’t think it’d be a problem; it was.
A mother and child walking the coffee fields.
The steepness of the climb, combined with the altitude and — I’ll admit it — fear, left me exhausted. So I was relieved when Maximiliano signaled after about an hour that we were taking a break. He spoke Mazateco, a native language, and a few words of Spanish. I spoke some Spanish, but he didn’t understand most of what I said. It was a very quiet trek.
I talked with a friend in Oaxaca before going on this trip and mentioned I was concerned about getting sick.
“Joseph,” he sighed, “you know, Mexicans get sick too.”
So I decided not to worry. But during that short break, I watched Maximiliano as he crouched behind a large rock, filled a small Coke bottle with water and took a few sips. I assumed there must be a stream. When I went to look, I found that the water came from a muddy puddle.
I decided it was time to start worrying.
Soon afterward, I took my camera out of my backpack to take a few shots, and that’s when I learned something was wrong with my light meter. When Maximiliano signaled it was time to continue, I stashed the camera in my backpack and walked on, about as depressed as I ever was.
Abelardo and his wife housed the writer.
Leonora said the hike would be three hours, and when we reached that point, I asked Maximiliano (as well as I could) how much longer it would be. He must have understood me because indicated “a little more.”
We continued on, me believing that the end of the journey was always just around the next bend. I was having some trouble keeping up with him. I kept pace going uphill, but he dusted me on the downhills and flat stretches. Imagine my chagrin when I learned he was 72. I was a youthful 48.
Mercifully, after another hour, we arrived in San Martín. It was barely a village. Homes were widely spaced along a dirt path and were constructed of wood and tin. It was the poorest village I’d ever been in.
Maximiliano took me to Abelardo and Hortencia’s home, and they graciously agreed to let me stay. When Abelardo saw I was shivering, he kindly gave me a soda while Hortencia heated some soup.
It’s difficult to photograph without a light meter, but I made adjustments by over- and underexposing each shot. I was doing this for the first day when, late in the afternoon, the meter bounced back to life. I had no idea why but was extremely grateful. I then went nuts.
I spent two weeks photographing in San Martín and in Santa Catarina, shooting 40 rolls of film, a total of just over 1,400 images. I photographed women cooking, people harvesting coffee, doing other work. Then, as I was leaving Santa Catarina, the meter died again but my work was done.
A San José Tenango elder drinks the local brew.
When I got back to San José Tenango, I told Leonora what happened. Without any hesitation, she said, “It was Chigonido.”
I didn’t understand. “Who’s Chigonido?” I asked, reproducing the name as best I could.
“Chigonido is the local god,” she explained. “He didn’t want you to take photographs.”
“But people were OK with me taking photographs,” I said.
“It does not matter,” she said. “If he does not want you to take photographs, you cannot take photographs.”
I told several people in the village what had happened. They all confirmed that it was because of Chigonido — even a college-educated teacher agreed.
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When I took the camera to a store in Oaxaca, I expected to learn there was a serious problem and had already decided to call a friend back in the United States and have him ship down my other camera. But there was no need. The problem was the batteries: they were dead.
Later, as I thought about what happened, I couldn’t understand how dead batteries could come back to life for two weeks, allowing me to shoot 40 rolls of film before dying again, this time permanently. The only explanation I’ve come up with — and I’ll admit it’s a remote possibility — is that maybe the people back in San José Tenango were correct.
Or, rather, partially correct. Maybe Chigonido did step in. But instead of preventing me from photographing, he brought the batteries back to life, bailing me out.
Joseph Sorrentino is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.
With thoughtful décor and no wet floors, Empress Carlota's bathroom at Chapultepec Castle might do well on the writer's rating system for Mexican bathrooms.
We interrupt today’s regularly scheduled anxiety-fueled opinion piece to pretend like we’re in “old times” and talk about something completely different: not Covid-19 or economics or human rights but bathrooms.
If you’ve lived in Mexico or even visited it for any significant amount of time, you know that the bathrooms can be experiences on their own. As someone who has to pee a lot and often, I like to think of myself as somewhat of a connoisseur at this point. If there’s a bathroom in a place I’ve visited, I’ve for sure been inside it.
Let’s start with home bathrooms. Those of you who’ve come from more-north North America have certainly noticed some major differences. First, most bathrooms here, even in large houses, are pretty tiny. Sitting down might have your knees knocking against the shower door or the cabinet under the sink (if there is one). Standing up could risk you bumping your head against the ceiling, as many half-baths are built under the stairs.
But there’s good news. There will probably be a mirror and toilet paper. There will probably be soap and a towel as well, which is really all you need. If you’re lucky, you might get to feast your eyes on some elaborately embroidered toilet and tank seat covers (they can be seasonal, too!). I’ve seen some great ones, but my favorites by far are Christmas themed.
Don’t expect to find countertops, cabinets or shelves. Such items have been — inexplicably, to me — somehow classified as either luxury or unnecessary items. Why these things have been equated with hanging chandeliers in closets is beyond me, and I work hard to supplement them however I can in nearly every house I’ve rented. I’ve also never found reading materials in anyone’s bathroom here, something I didn’t realize I’d miss until it wasn’t around.
From here, allow us to graduate to bathrooms in cafes and restaurants. As you can imagine, these can run a fairly large gamut, from literal toilets in the middle of a closet complete with swaying lightbulb to incredibly fancy get-ups with soft music and lights that come on automatically when you walk in.
Surprisingly, the fanciness of the establishment is not always indicative of the state of the bathroom. One not-cheap hipster burger-and-beer joint that was elaborately decorated and cared for had a dark bathroom with a sopping wet floor right by the kitchen. The metal door didn’t close all the way, and the toilet flushed by pulling on a string dangling out of a tank. I also had to ask for toilet paper to be put in the bathroom (spoiler alert for those who have bathrooms to stock: if the user has a vagina, they’re going to need toilet paper).
The nicest bathroom I’ve been in — it gets five stars! — was in a tea shop here in Xalapa. The walls were painted a pleasing charcoal with a slight sheen, and there were real plants on real dust-free wooden shelves and a cool, tiny white-tiled floor. Soft paper towels awaited me in a cute basket by the sink. The mirror had a beautiful frame, and it even had fancy scent-matched soap and lotion. The door locked, there was no mold or peeling paint and the light switch was immediately identifiable. 10/10.
A classification of bathrooms that some might not be familiar with are those found in municipal spaces. In parks, for example, bathrooms must be paid for. They are not necessarily nice or clean, but when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. So you pay your approximately six pesos, and an attendant hands you about 10 squares of toilet paper and a ticket for your entry. When you’re done, you’ll wash your hands with some kind of mystery soap: sometimes it’s liquid and sometimes it’s powder, but it’s always in a recycled plastic container with no label. My favorite mystery soap so far has been one that left my hands smelling exactly like the grape soda I used to love drinking as a kid.
Bus stations are another adventure. Sometimes there are attendants, but usually you simply put your coins into a turnstile and are mechanically allowed in. The space available in the turnstiles is quite small, and I’ve been known to carry either my bag or my kid over my head in order for us to fit through. Once inside, toilet paper is available in a dispenser on the wall, and you grab however much you think you might need. I’m always torn at this point between not wanting to waste paper and being afraid of not grabbing enough. I usually take a little extra and stick it in my pocket or purse for next time.
When I see stocked toilet paper dispensers inside stalls, I actually send up a little prayer of thanks. What a treat! The toilet seat might not be there but no matter! This is plenty. Thank you.
Back when I first came to Mexico, I used to joke with a friend that we should start a bathroom rating system for public establishments, like Yelp but for bathrooms! This could be done anywhere, of course, but with the variety available in Mexico, it can be an especially fun game.
Behold, the star system:
1 star: It is identifiable as a bathroom. That’s it.
2 stars: It has a door that closes, a light that works and running water.
3 stars: All of the above plus a lock on the door and a mirror. Soap and toilet paper are there without having to ask for them. There’s a toilet seat.
4 stars: All of the above, plus it’s clean: no mold, no sopping wet floors (oddly common here), moderately decorated and an easily findable light switch.
5 stars: All of the above, plus intentionally organized and decorated. A hook to hang your purse, fancy soap and lotion.
So there you have it, folks. It’s a fun game you can play with yourself while you’re out, as you’re pretty much guaranteed a new adventure with each trip. It also gives you something to think about other than the pandemic! Win-win.
I’m thinking of making a calendar next.
Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sdevrieswritingandtranslating.com.
López-Gatell, right, met with officials in Argentina seeking details about Sputnik V.
Mystery surrounds Mexico’s apparently imminent approval of Russia’s Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.
A day after President López Obrador said that Russia had agreed to send 24 million doses of the two-shot vaccine to Mexico, a senior health official announced Tuesday that the first 200,000 doses would arrive next week.
On Tuesday night, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, Mexico’s coronavirus point man, spoke of an approval process for the Sputnik vaccine that the Associated Press (AP) said “sounded like a Cold War spy thriller”and may not invite confidence in the shot.
The deputy minister said that a new medications technical committee had recommended approval of Sputnik V and that Cofepris, Mexico’s health regulator, only lacked “some details” to give it the green light.
“The technical part, the main part of Cofepris, particularly the committee on new medications, has given a favorable recommendation to authorize, that is to say, the crucial part has been solved,” López-Gatell said.
He also said he had not had access to the results of phase 3 trials despite speaking with Russian officials about the Sputnik vaccine over a period of weeks. Vaccine trial results, indicating efficacy and safety, are normally published in international medical journals but Russian authorities have to date only published limited data about the Sputnik V on the vaccine’s own website.
Russian officials have given conflicting accounts about the Sputnik vaccine, AP reported, increasing its supposed effectiveness to higher levels whenever a United States-made Covid-19 vaccine publishes its results.
As there was no data on the Sputnik vaccine published in journals, President López Obrador dispatched López-Gatell to Argentina, which has approved and is using the Russian vaccine, to see what he could find out about it.
According to AP, officials in Argentina had to call their counterparts in Russia to get permission to share confidential files on the Sputnik shot with Mexico.
Although López-Gatell said he hadn’t been able to get his hands of phase 3 results, AP said that the Argentines gave him a copy of them. The deputy minister apparently then submitted the results and other Sputnik data to Cofepris for the purpose of approving the vaccine, which Russia says is 91.4% effective.
But although the Cofepris technical committee recommended approval it turns out the vaccine application hasn’t even been formally filed yet, AP said.
“Mexican authorities apparently can’t grant authorization based on what may be a sheaf of photocopies from who-knows-where obtained through back channels,” the news agency said.
López-Gatell said Tuesday that the government is currently attempting to get Russian officials, who may have scant experience dealing with pesky regulators, to designate a person to formally submit a vaccine approval application that appears to have already been rubber stamped. (López Obrador said last week that approval was imminent and health officials have said much the same.)
That Mexico desperately needs access to more vaccines is unquestionable – the nation’s death toll passed 150,000 this week – but it remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient public confidence in the Sputnik V shot to make its purchase worthwhile – provided it is as effective as the Russians say it is.
National Action Party (PAN) Senator Xóchitl Gálvez questioned why the federal government is purchasing the Russian vaccine over others that are available and more widely trusted.
“The important thing is to save lives … [but] why buy a vaccine that doesn’t yet have the backing of the international scientific community, the World Health Organization or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” she wrote on Twitter.
“I do want vaccines, but ones that have been approved by the World Health Organization and the international scientific community,” tweeted Senator Lilly Téllez, who also represents the PAN. “The Russian vaccine does not have that yet. It is the cheap vaccine, that is why the government chose it.”
Mexico also has agreements to purchase the Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/Oxford University and CanSino Biologics vaccines. However, it has so far only received shipments of the Pfizer shot, which has been used to vaccinate frontline health workers.
More than 652,000 doses had been administered as of Tuesday night, leaving Mexico with around 114,000 unused ones. No further shipments of the Pfizer vaccine are expected until the middle of February because the pharmaceutical company is upgrading its Belgum plant while the AstraZeneca and Cansino shots likely won’t arrive before March.
Meanwhile, Mexico’s coronavirus case tally and Covid-19 death toll continue to climb at a rapid rate. The Health Ministry reported 17,165 new cases on Tuesday, pushing the accumulated tally to just under 1.79 million while the death toll rose by 1,743 to 152,016.
The author and her book, a damning indictment of the government's management of the coronavirus pandemic.
The federal government’s management of the coronavirus pandemic has been criminal in its negligence, according to a new book by a doctor and National Autonomous University (UNAM) academic.
Un daño irreparable: La criminal gestión de la pandemic en México (Irreparable Damage: The Criminal Management of the Pandemic in Mexico) by Dr. Laurie Ann Ximénez-Fyvie, director of the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at UNAM, takes aim at the federal government coronavirus strategy led by Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell.
Ximénez-Fyvie, a Harvard University-trained doctor in medical sciences, criticizes the coronavirus response in a range of areas, asserting that the government responded slowly at the start of the pandemic and failed to implement the required mitigation measures. She also accuses the government of not testing enough, not being a good advocate for face masks and giving citizens poor advice about when to seek medical treatment if they or a family member becomes ill with Covid-19.
“None of what has happened was inevitable,” Ximénez-Fyvie wrote, referring to Mexico’s high coronavirus case tally and Covid-19 death toll. (The former is currently just under 1.8 million while the latter is 152,016).
“This hasn’t been an unpredictable or unfathomable event. The results we are living through today are the direct consequence of the decisions that have been taken to confront the problem.”
López-Gatell accused of knowingly mismanaging the pandemic response.
Whereas countries like Vietnam and Rwanda implemented strict lockdowns and closed their borders early in the pandemic when they had few cases, Mexico failed to do so, Ximénez-Fyvie wrote.
She contended that Mexico has been unable to cut coronavirus transmission chains because it hasn’t detected cases, especially asymptomatic ones, in a timely manner via widespread testing. The low testing rate – Mexico has only tested about 31 people per 1,000 inhabitants – has prevented authorities from understanding how the pandemic is behaving here, Ximénez-Fyvie argued.
“In Mexico, a supposedly democratic country, it has been impossible to have trustworthy statistics,” she wrote.
The UNAM academic took aim at López-Gatell for downplaying the effectiveness of face masks in stopping the spread of the virus, writing that his remarks have contributed to the worsening of the pandemic. She condemned the government for advising people not to go to hospital until their Covid-19 symptoms are serious.
“It was said not to go to hospital until the patient felt very sick. That was conducive to the spreading of infections [in people’s homes] and upon arriving at the hospital it was too late [in many cases],” Ximénez-Fyvie wrote.
In a radio interview, the doctor charged that López-Gatell, a Johns Hopkins University-trained epidemiologist, has knowingly mismanaged the pandemic response.
President López Obrador has been a staunch defender of his coronavirus point man in the face of wide criticism.
“He’s not ignorant, on the contrary he’s intelligent. … It’s not a mistake due to a lack of information but rather of a person who has taken a conscious decision not to do things as they should be done,” she told Radio Formula.
With regard to her book, Ximénez-Fyvie said that its intention is to serve as a testimony of what has happened since the coronavirus was first detected here almost a year ago.
“I don’t have hope that there will eventually be accountability but I do believe that there must be an objective record of what is happening, a record of why so many people have lost their lives in less than a year,” she said.
“The damage that is done is irreparable,” Ximénez-Fyvie said, arguing that the impact could have been much less had the government managed it better.
“It’s damage that vaccination won’t repair,” she added.
In a recent Twitter post, the academic said that in writing her book she “chose not to be indifferent to the pain of others and assume the immense responsibility of raising my voice in favor of health and life.”
“This [book] is my grain of sand. It’s too late for those who have already departed but there are a lot of lives left to save. The course [of managing the pandemic] has to be corrected.”
Un daño irreparable is available as an e-book now and will be in bookstores across the country in the coming days.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has placed all alcohol-based hand sanitizers from Mexico on a nationwide import alert in an effort to stop products with dangerous and even life-threatening forms of alcohol from entering the U.S. until the agency can further review their safety.
“Over the course of the ongoing pandemic, the agency has seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products from Mexico that were labeled to contain ethanol but tested positive for methanol contamination,” the agency said in an alert issued Wednesday.
Methanol, or wood alcohol, can be toxic when absorbed through the skin and life-threatening when ingested.
The FDA has been issuing warnings on its website about hand sanitizer products from Mexico — and other nations like China, Korea, and Turkey — throughout much of the pandemic, but this is the first time it has issued a countrywide import alert for any category of drug product.
Officials said they have identified seven deaths in the U.S. directly linked to hand sanitizers manufactured in Mexico that contained methanol.
The alert means that alcohol-based hand sanitizers imported from Mexico will be subject to heightened FDA scrutiny and that shipments can be detained by FDA staff.
The FDA’s analyses found 84% of samples from April through December 2020 were not in compliance with FDA regulations. More than half of the samples were found to contain toxic ingredients, including methanol and/or 1-propanol, at dangerous levels.
“Consumer use of hand sanitizers has increased significantly during the coronavirus pandemic, especially when soap and water are not accessible,” an FDA spokeswoman said. “The availability of poor-quality products with dangerous and unacceptable ingredients will not be tolerated.”
A list of all hand sanitizer products found by the FDA either to be potentially dangerous or simply ineffective can be found here.
Meanwhile, Mexican sanitizers were associated with a much different kind of danger this week — kidnappers.
According to Mexico City Police Chief Omar García Harfuch, officers arrested a pair of suspects in Miguel Hidalgo who were running a scam in which customers who thought they were buying large amounts of sanitization products were lured to a location where they were held against their will and ordered to pay large sums of money or have family members do so in exchange for their release.
One of two vehicles in which the bodies were found last weekend in Tamaulipas.
The United Nations High Commission on Human Rights in Mexico has compared the discovery of 19 charred bodies in Tamaulipas last weekend with two notorious massacres in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León in 2010 and 2012.
“These deeds recall the massacres that occurred in San Fernando, Tamaulipas, in 2010 and in Cadereyta, Nuevo León in 2012, where the families of victims continue in search of the truth, justice, and reparations,” said UN representative Guillermo Fernández-Maldonado.
He said “the lack of truly safe, orderly, and regular migration alternatives pushes migrants to resort to human traffickers or dangerous routes,” and that this puts them at risk of being possible victims of “serious violations” of human rights.
In the 2010 incident in San Fernando, the military found 72 bodies of undocumented migrants at a ranch after an armed confrontation with members of the Zetas cartel. In the 2012 incident, authorities found 49 dismembered bodies dumped on the side of a road in Cadereyta.
Tamaulipas authorities continue to work on identifying the 19 bodies found in Camargo near the United States border. The bodies, which also showed signs of gunshot wounds, were found in two burned vehicles. According to area residents, the victims may have been Guatemalan migrants seeking passage to the United States, but authorities have not confirmed anything about the identities of the bodies except their gender.
Tamaulipas Security Ministry spokesman Luis Alberto Rodríguez told Milenio Television that authorities have been able to establish that 16 of the bodies are male and one is female. The gender of the two other bodies has not yet been determined, he said.
Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero took issue with Fernández-Maldonado’s statement during President López Obrador’s daily press conference Wednesday, saying that the Camargo incident was not similar to the San Fernando massacre because the former is being thoroughly investigated.
“Every day since this event happened we have been in the [security] cabinet viewing the advances [the investigation] has made,” she said. “I can tell you with great certainty that they have advanced a lot.”
Guatemala Vice President Guillermo Reyes condemned the massacre while adding that his nation’s government was waiting for updated information to provide clarity in the case.
Mexican authorities have taken DNA samples of the bodies as part of their investigation, and the Ministry of Foreign Relations and Guatemalan congressional Deputy Douglas Rivero are making preparations for the victims to be repatriated to Guatemala if indeed any of them turn out to be from there.
Opium poppy farmers in a Tierra Caliente municipality of Guerrero are demanding that the army stop destroying their crops and leave.
“The soldiers are still here destroying [the crops] and what we want is for them to go,” a San Miguel Totolapan poppy farmer told the newspaper Reforma in a telephone interview.
The farmer said that he and other poppy growers are drawing up a list of demands to be submitted to President López Obrador and Guerrero Governor Héctor Astudillo. First and foremost is the withdrawal of the army from the Sierra section of the Tierra Caliente (hotlands) region.
“We’re going to give the government a few days to attend to us,” the farmer said.
Reforma reported that poppy farmers from seven communities confronted soldiers last weekend after they destroyed 50 hectares of plants. The army has been eradicating poppy crops in Guerrero and states such as Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango for years.
The price paid for opium paste – the raw ingredient of heroin – has plummeted in recent years due to lower demand brought about by the increasing popularity in the United States of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The sharp decline in price has left many poppy farmers in a precarious financial situation.
The San Miguel Totolapan farmer said that a kilogram of opium paste currently sells for 8,000 pesos (US $395) while at the start of the previous federal government’s 2012-2018 term, a kilo went for between 25,000 and 30,000 pesos (US $1,235 to $1,485 at today’s exchange rate).
The farmer said the drop in opium prices has forced poppy growers to survive on a very basic diet.
“We have beans, corn and chiles but we can no longer buy meat and milk,” he said. “We’re forgotten here and up until now the government hasn’t given us any support.”
The farmer called on federal and state officials to travel to the Tierra Caliente and speak with ordinary people and local leaders about the problems they face and ways to resolve them.
Nicolas Tranchart flying a gyrocopter over Teotihuacán, a feat he says he'd never be allowed to do in his native France.
When Vivalatina founder Nicolas Tranchart came to Mexico from his native France eight years ago as an experienced engineer, he knew that it was a perfect time for a new beginning.
“After being an employee for a long time, I wanted to become an entrepreneur,” he says.
Tranchart brought with him his fledgling jewelry business, which is now based in Puerto Vallarta and has expanded into making custom-designed pieces. His arrival was not his first time in Mexico, however. Tranchart first came in 2004 while in college and worked for a while in a Querétaro company, then eventually moved to Reynosa, Tamaulipas, to work in a factory. It was there that he met his wife Reyna. The couple initially moved back to France, but because French labor law prevented Reyna from working in her field of medicine, they decided to come back to her home country after four years of trying to adapt to Europe.
“Eight years from there, I can say that both of us have more opportunities here than we would have had in France,” Tranchart says.
The idea for his startup came to him during his period when he had returned to France. While Tranchart was still working full-time as a mechanical engineer, he decided to sell some Mexican jewelry — first to friends and then online. Local contacts in Taxco helped him with importing pieces. But once they returned to Mexico, Tranchart decided to concentrate on the business idea completely so that he didn’t have to start from scratch. He also liked the idea of keeping connections to his homeland.
Eight years ago, Tranchart moved his business to Mexico.
For the first four years business was slow, with annual sales at barely US $3,000. But then clients started asking him for custom pieces. He began working with jewelers based in Puerto Vallarta who could do personalized designs.
“After a few months, I could see that it was better than just reselling,” he said. “I improved my offers, publicity and many other things to find my niche, to grow.”
As he grew, Tranchart noted that he had two types of competitors: large companies that make standardized jewelry sourced locally or from China and jewelers working alone who had good craftsmanship and quality but no knowledge of how to sell their work online. Tranchart saw his mission as positioning Vivalatina between the two groups.
The strategy has worked. Last year alone, the company made around 200 sales in France and Europe.
“It’s not about numbers, it’s about quality,” he said. His business’s next goal, he says, is to expand into the United States market.
With increased demand, Tranchart has found himself drawing upon his engineering skills, bringing in more advanced software for rendering and machines that do casting and stone-setting. His office also boasts a homemade 3-D printer that helped cut costs even further.
Tranchart’s gyrocopter
“In France, many jewelers work with subcontractors to complete every stage of jewelry making, and here we can do everything in the shop ourselves. It’s a mix between my knowledge of the French market, the advantages that Mexico offers — like cheaper labor and less tax — and the technology that can make it all work,” he explains.
Tranchart now relies on two Mexican jewelers and an assistant on-site, as well as a network of trusted providers. With time, he has managed to find the right people and adapt to Mexican work culture.
“I became much cooler so that I don’t have a nervous breakdown when somebody doesn’t arrive exactly on time,” he says.
And he’s learned to deal with even serious setbacks. A couple of years ago, when he was still renting his shop location, the police came and knocked on the door, telling him he had to leave because the landlord who had rented him the shop had done so illegally. The entrepreneur had to pack up very quickly and move everything he had onto the street. But this and other difficulties he’s encountered have taught him resilience.
“I’m actually more confident now than in France, when I was not doing anything extraordinary but was still worried about something most of the time,” he says. “Here I know that things can happen but there will be always someone to help you when you need it.”
He is also convinced that it’s much easier to grow your business in Mexico than in his home country.
Tranchart and his wife Reyna.
“If someone writes me an email at 8 p.m. in France, it’s 1 p.m. here, and I can text back immediately. Usually, the clients feel amazed because no one replies to them so quickly,” he says. “I have clients in Europe, in the U.S. I’ve got providers in Israel, in Asia. My team is with me here, so I’m not alone anymore. It’s like an endeavour, an adventure.”
To start a business here, Tranchart says, you need to learn the language and to try to understand the local culture.
“My point is, there are always solutions. There is always someone willing to work, willing to help,” he said. “Once you’ve better learned the language and the country, you can do anything you want.”
As an example of Mexico’s openness, he cites his hobby flying gyrocopters. He once flew 50 meters over the Teotihuacán pyramids with a friend.
“That would have been totally forbidden in Europe, or perhaps anywhere else,” he says. “My wife says, ‘In Mexico everything is possible, you just have to find a way.’”
Nicolas Tranchart’s international jewelry business can be found online.
Passengers were left stranded in Cancún because their Covid test results were no longer current.
Some people are canceling their plans to travel to the United States due to a new U.S. quarantine rule even though it is not currently being enforced.
Several flights that were scheduled to depart Mexico City on Tuesday for cities in the United States were canceled because many of the would-be passengers canceled their reservations.
An employee of the Mexican airline Volaris told the newspaper Reforma that at least five flights were canceled, including services to Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. The worker said that flights to the United States were oversold on Monday but some were left with as few as eight passengers on Tuesday due to cancellations.
“They don’t take off like that [with so few passengers],” he said. “A lot [of people] canceled because they thought it was mandatory to stay in confinement for seven days in the United States. But that’s not the case, that’s just a recommendation.”
The CEO of Volaris said there is uncertainty surrounding the quarantine rule, which stems from an executive order signed by United States President Joe Biden last Thursday and took effect on Tuesday. Enrique Beltranena said he interpreted the quarantine directive as a “recommendation” rather than a hard and fast rule, asserting that the presentation of a negative Covid-19 test is the only mandatory requirement for travelers to the United States.
Biden’s executive order stated that travelers entering the United States are required to comply with Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) recommended periods of self-quarantine. The CDC recommends that people stay at home for seven days after returning from high risk international travel even if they test negative for Covid-19.
“Everyone flying to the U.S. from another country will need to test before they get on that plane, before they depart, and quarantine when they arrive in America,” Biden said, referring to his executive order.
However, The Washington Post reported that the CDC said in an email Monday that it will not enforce its quarantine guidelines. “There is not a mandatory, federal quarantine,” the agency said.
Biden’s executive order asked federal U.S. agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop plans that “shall identify agencies’ tools and mechanisms to assist travelers in complying with such policy” within two weeks of the signing of the order.
But as things stand no enforceable quarantine rule is in place across the United States.
CDC spokeswoman Caitlin Shockey told the Post that the current legislation doesn’t amount to “a mandatory quarantine” requirement, describing the rule as “just a recommendation.”
The airport at Mazatlán is one of several where Covid testing stations have been installed.
The Post reported that “travel experts and officials say that quarantine enforcement will be tricky, but that following the CDC’s guidance as a requirement would be safest.”
However, airlines are enforcing the negative Covid-19 test requirement. (The U.S. accepts the results of both antigen and PCR tests.)
There were reports on Tuesday that some people were unable to check in to flights to the United States from the airports in Mexico City and Cancún, Quintana Roo, either because they didn’t have a negative Covid-19 test or the negative result they had wasn’t obtained in the previous 72 hours.
To facilitate the negative test requirement of the United States and some other countries, the Pacific Airport Group has made PCR and antigen Covid-19 testing available at its airports in Guadalajara, Tijuana, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Guanajuato, Hermosillo, Mexicali, Morelia, La Paz, Aguascalientes, Los Mochis and Manzanillo.
At the Mexico City airport, a testing station has been installed in terminal 1 between doors 3 and 4. More testing stations will be set up in the airport in the coming days, the federal Communications and Transportation Ministry said.
At the terminal 1 testing station, an antigen test costs 680 pesos (US $34) and results are available in 15 minutes while a PCR test costs 2,500 pesos (US $124) and results return in 24 hours. Travelers to Canada and some European countries, among others around the world, are required to present a negative PCR test, which are considered more accurate than rapid tests.
The United States’ (as yet unenforced) quarantine rule, and the negative Covid-19 test requirement, is likely not only to cause more people to cancel plans to travel from Mexico to the U.S. but also vice versa.
Fernando Gómez Suárez, a tourism and aviation expert, said earlier this week that fewer U.S. tourists will come to Mexico if they have to go into isolation for at least seven days upon returning home. Such a situation would, of course, have a negative impact on the Mexican tourism sector, which has already been hit hard by the pandemic and associated restrictions.
According to the Ministry of Tourism, the United States’ testing and quarantine requirements will result in millions of fewer tourists coming to Mexico and cost the tourism sector at least US $1.6 billion in lost revenue.
About six in 10 international tourists who came to Mexico last year were from the United States, according to federal data, a figure that emphasizes the importance of the U.S. market. Locked out of European countries and other popular tourism destinations around the world due to the raging pandemic at home, United States tourists have flocked to the Quintana Roo resorts of Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, as well as other Mexican destinations such as Mexico City, even as Mexico faces its own extremely bad coronavirus situation.
(As of Tuesday, confirmed cases totaled almost 1.8 million and the Covid-19 death toll was just over 152,000.)
Unlike many countries, Mexico has not restricted flights from any foreign nation during the coronavirus pandemic. It hasn’t required foreign travelers or Mexicans returning home to quarantine upon arrival in the country either.
The lack of rules for international travelers and the absence of hard lockdown measures has made Mexico an attractive – and accessible – destination for people fed up with restrictions at home and eager to get away.
Now, however, it appears inevitable that the new U.S. rules will stop at least some United States citizens from fleeing south, and as an unintended byproduct cause more economic pain for a tourism sector that is heavily dependent on Americans and the dollars they bring.
