Authorities in Morelos have warned that red light restrictions will be enforced if citizens’ compliance with current coronavirus rules doesn’t improve by Wednesday.
Health Minister Marco Antonio Cantú Cuevas said Monday that Morelos will return to lockdown restrictions in 48 hours if people don’t comply with social distancing recommendations and continue to attend parties and gatherings with family and friends.
He added that red light restrictions could be implemented if there is not a significant reduction in citizens’ mobility generally.
“We want to make a call to the public and [issue] a warning due to the situation the state finds itself it. While there are [hospital] beds [now], that could change at any time,” Cantú said.
If people’s behavior doesn’t change by Wednesday, “we’ll inevitably return to the red stoplight” risk level, he said.
State Civil Protection chief Enrique Clement Gallardo said that patrols to ensure compliance with coronavirus rules will be increased in light of a recent increase in the number of violations reported.
Morelos, which borders coronavirus epicenter Mexico City, is one of just five states that have recorded fewer than 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. But its proximity to the capital, which has recorded almost 300,000 cases, places it at considerable risk of a large outbreak.
Cantú said that some bars, hotels and restaurants have increased the risk of the coronavirus situation worsening in Morelos – currently an orange light “high” risk state, according to the federal stoplight system – because they have failed to comply with health protocols and respect maximum capacity limits, currently set at 50%.
The health minister also said that people defied coronavirus rules to attend parties and gatherings las weekend, adding that commercial centers were full with Christmas shoppers.
“We were witnesses to a lot of irregularities over the past two days that don’t correspond to the emergency situation,” Cantú said.
“If we don’t pay attention [to the coronavirus rules], there will be no way for us to help you,” he said, referring to the possibility that hospitals will be overwhelmed and some people sick with the virus won’t be able to find a bed.
Federal data shows that 42% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients in Morelos are currently occupied while 24% of those with ventilators are in use. The state has recorded 1,574 Covid-19 deaths, according to state data.
Citizens of Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, block a highway December 16 to protest insecurity.
At the end of 2020, Guanajuato will receive the unenviable title of Mexico’s most violent state for a second consecutive year.
Official statistics show that 4,190 people were murdered in the Bajío region state between January and November.
Guanajuato’s homicide count is 58.5% higher than that of Baja California, which ranks second for murders with 2,643 victims in the first 11 months of the year.
México state ranks third with 2,592 victims, followed by Chihuahua, Jalisco and Michoacán with 2,516, 2,421 and 2,229 victims, respectively.
Left-hand column indicates last year’s figures. Black circles show percentage increase this year. elfinanciero/sesnsp
The victim tally between January and November in Guanajuato, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel are engaged in a vicious turf war, was 30.5% higher than in the same period of 2019.
In sheer numbers, Guanajuato was also the most violent state in Mexico in 2019 with more than 3,500 homicide victims. In per-capita terms, it was the fifth most violent state with 44.95 homicides per 100,000 residents. Colima ranked first, followed by Baja California, Chihuahua and Morelos.
After the first 11 months of 2020, Guanajuato is the fourth most violent state in per-capita terms with 50.11 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Baja California ranks first with a rate of 65.15 followed by Colima and Chihuahua with rates of 63.43 and 56.45, respectively.
Guanajuato is not the only state that has seen an increase in homicide numbers in 2020.
All told, 11 states recorded more murders between January and November of this year compared to the same period in 2019. Zacatecas saw the sharpest increase with the number of victims increasing 64.9% to 935 from 567.
Yucatán recorded the second biggest increase, but its homicide numbers remain very low. There were 43 murder victims in that state between January and November, a 53.6% increase compared to the 28 victims in the same period last year.
Homicides increased 47.4% to 672 in San Luis Potosí and 22.5% in Michoacán to 2,229.
Sonora, Durango, Campeche, Querétaro, Chihuahua and Hidalgo recorded increases of between 1% and 18%.
The number of homicide victims in the other 21 states declined in the first 11 months of the year.
Baja California Sur (BCS), Guerrero, Veracruz and Tamaulipas – four states that have been among the most violent in Mexico in recent years – were among the federal entities that saw a decrease in violence.
The number of homicide victims declined 30.5% in BCS, 22.2% in Guerrero, 16.2% in Veracruz and 15.2% in Tamaulipas.
López-Gatell has taken issue with Monday's report in the New York Times.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell has rejected a report that claimed that the federal government misled citizens about the severity of the coronavirus situation in Mexico City.
The New York Timespublished a report Monday that said López-Gatell signed a document that notified Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum about the risk level in the capital on December 4.
The figures for hospital occupancy in Mexico City and the capital’s Covid-19 positivity rate on the document were lower than published official data. The lower figures allowed the federal government to avoid having to designate Mexico City as a red light “maximum” risk state at the start of December.
The capital consequently remained “high” risk orange on the stoplight map until last Saturday when red light restrictions were implemented.
Speaking at the Health Ministry’s coronavirus press briefing on Monday night, López-Gatell asserted that “there are several information holes” in The New York Times report.
“They took partial information [and] interpreted it without correct knowledge of the situation [and] the multiple mechanisms we have … to make the stoplight rating,” he said.
However, the coronavirus point man didn’t deny that there was a discrepancy between the information on the document he signed and official data that was published.
Natalie Kitroeff, the Times reporter who wrote the story, published a copy of the document on her Twitter account, writing: “Here is the document Hugo López-Gatell sent to Claudia Sheinbaum justifying keeping the city open. The numbers for hospital beds with ventilators and % positivity of Covid tests are both lower than what he and the govt. published.”
López-Gatell said that another imprecision of the report is “a vision” that Mayor Shienbaum and the federal government are not on the same page with regard to management of the pandemic.
“That’s not the case. Fortunately in the case of the metropolitan region we can … work together,” he said.
In addition, the deputy minister charged that the Times misinterpreted remarks he recently made about the stoplight color allocated to Mexico City.
Mayor Sheinbaum accused the newspaper of looking for confrontation.
The newspaper said that “López-Gatell has recently tried to minimize the importance of the traffic light system that he created and championed,” noting that he stated December 11 that “the color of the traffic light is at a certain point irrelevant.”
The coronavirus czar said Monday that his remark that the stoplight color was “at a certain point irrelevant” in no way meant that that the stoplight system itself was irrelevant.
“I said very clearly that the stoplight color we’re on [in Mexico City] is irrelevant to a certain point when we’re declaring alert for Covid, emergency for Covid. … When we declared alert for Covid, or more precisely when the Mexico City government declared alert for Covid, emergency for Covid, and issued a series of specific recommendations that correspond to lockdown measures, the color of the stoplight is irrelevant, not the tool of the stoplight [system]. It never stopped being relevant, never. It continues to be in use,” López-Gatell said.
Prior to Mexico City turning red on the stoplight map, the Mexico City government added an “alert” warning to the capital’s orange light designation.
Continuing his rebuttal of the Times report, López-Gatell said the vast majority of the coronavirus data presented by the federal government comes from statistics supplied to it by the states.
Therefore, “another of the imprecisions of this article is the idea that Mexico City couldn’t react because it didn’t have information. That’s not the case. The information that the federal government has comes from Mexico City,” he said.
“Besides, … Mexico City not only was able to react, it did react and reacted very well.”
The Times, however, didn’t say that the Mexico City government didn’t have the information it required to “react.”
Indeed, it said that Sheinbaum “could have broken with the federal government and put the city on lockdown earlier.”
However, the newspaper said “that move would have been politically risky” because the mayor has close ties to President López Obrador, who has “minimized the pandemic from the start.”
It is not the first time that López-Gatell has taken issue with a New York Times report about coronavirus in Mexico. In May, he rejected a report that the federal government was not reporting hundreds or possibly thousands of Covid-19 deaths identified by authorities in Mexico City.
Evidence that subsequently came to light, including an analysis of death certificates issued in the capital up until the middle of May, indicated that the Times‘ assertion was correct.
The newspaper’s latest report about coronavirus in Mexico also triggered a response from Mayor Sheinbaum.
She said the media has been reporting on alleged differences between her government and the federal government since the start of the pandemic but claimed “they’re completely wrong because there has been permanent coordination.”
Sheinbaum said her government provided an email to the Times reporter that established that Mexico City determined – just as the federal government did – that the capital would remain at the orange light level for the two weeks starting December 7.
The Times and other media are looking for “confrontation,” the mayor said. “They can publish anything [they want] but it’s important that our version [of events] is given.”
Customers line up for oxygen refills at a Mexico City supplier.
As Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations for the disease continue to increase in Mexico City, medical supply stores that refill oxygen tanks are reporting supply shortages.
Hector Silva, an employee at a store where a line of people waited patiently for oxygen to arrive, told the newspaper El Universal that he has seen supplies go scarce over the last two weeks. His store had been out of oxygen for 24 hours, he said, and he wasn’t sure when more might arrive.
Mauricio Fuentes, a customer at a store in the city’s Roma neighborhood, said on Saturday he had tried unsuccessfully to refill his 70-year-old father’s oxygen tank in the Tacubaya neighborhood. His father has Covid-19, Fuentes said, and he must refill the tank daily.
Antonio, another customer in the same line, said he had gone to two different areas looking for a tank refill.
The Mexico City government has called for citizens to go into “total isolation” as hospitals in the capital come under intense pressure due to an increase in the admission of coronavirus patients. Just over 85% of general care beds set aside for Covid-19 patients in Mexico City are currently occupied, according to federal data, while 74% of those with ventilators are in use.
Oxygen support is frequently needed not only for people with active cases of Covid-19 but also for recovering patients who continue to have intermittent problems with breathing.
According to Google Trends, search terms related to oxygen and oxygen tanks have increased in Mexico City since October, as well as in México state, Chiapas, Campeche and Tamaulipas. Appeals by people asking for leads on where to buy and refill oxygen tanks have become common on social media.
Last week, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said her government plans to determine whether prices for oxygen tanks and refills have gone up with the increase in coronavirus cases.
A dry run of the vaccination process is conducted last Friday in Mexico City.
Mexico will not begin inoculating health workers against Covid-19 on Tuesday as planned because a first batch of 250,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has not yet arrived.
However, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday morning that the shipment was in transit and will arrive in Mexico Wednesday.
The federal government had announced that it would begin administering the Covid-19 vaccine to health workers in Mexico City and Coahuila on Tuesday.
The Coahuila government attributed the delay to logistical problems at Pfizer.
Ebrard, who has taken a leading role in the government’s efforts to secure access to Covid-19 vaccines, said in late November that the Pfizer/BioNTech could arrive in Mexico five days after the health regulatory agency Cofrepris approved its use here.
As is the case in many countries around the world, authorities and citizens alike are eagerly awaiting the rollout of the vaccine as coronavirus case numbers and Covid-19 deaths continue to mount.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 1,325,915 on Monday with 5,370 new cases reported while the official death toll increased to 118,598 with 396 additional fatalities registered.
The government of Coahuila, which was an early hotspot in Mexico’s coronavirus pandemic and ranks seventh among the 32 states for accumulated cases, said it had “everything ready” to administer the first Covid-19 vaccines and was just waiting for the doses to arrive.
A shipment of thousands of syringes arrived in the state on Saturday and preparations were made to inoculate health workers at military facilities in Saltillo, Torreón and Piedras Negras.
Military facilities and hospitals in Mexico City had also prepared to being administering vaccines on Tuesday.
The delay in the arrival of the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is a setback for the federal government, which has been widely criticized for its handling of the pandemic.
Some doctors believe that the government will also bungle the distribution and application of Covid-19 vaccines.
Dr. Francisco Moreno, head of the Covid-19 unit at the private ABC medical center in Mexico City, told The Los Angeles Times that “the management of the pandemic has been so bad that we are not optimistic about how the vaccine is going to be managed.”
“The people at the top are not doing what has to be done,” he said.
A veteran doctor at at Mexico City public hospital identified only as Claudia said: “We are living in a catastrophe right now — we have patients sharing one tank of oxygen and there is a shortage of everything: ventilators, beds, medicines, safety gear, medical personnel. I have faith in the effectiveness of the vaccine. But I have no faith in the abilities of authorities to handle the logistics of vaccination, because they have demonstrated that they are not capable.”
In addition to the Pfizer/BioNTech, the federal government has agreements to purchase 77.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine and 35 million doses of China’s CanSino Biologics vaccine.
But their approval in Mexico and delivery is not expected until sometime next year. According to the vaccination plan presented by the government on December 8, one million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Mexico in each of January, February and March and a shipment of 12 million doses is expected in April
But even if all those shipments, and the 250,000 doses expected to arrive before the end of the year, reach Mexico as scheduled, only 7.6 million people will have been vaccinated by the end of April as each person must be given two shots three weeks apart.
That figure would represent less than 6% of Mexico’s population of almost 130 million, leaving the majority of citizens susceptible to developing a serious Covid-19 illness. Mexico’s pandemic – one of the worst in the world in terms of case numbers and deaths – appears unlikely to end any time soon.
You can expect delays with Mexico's postal service.
It took 116 days for a letter mailed through the Mexican postal service to get from Monterrey, Nuevo León, to Dallas, Texas, the newspaper Reforma reported.
And that was after paying for “rapid delivery.”
Mexico’s notoriously slow mail service was the focus of an experiment by newspaper staff, who mailed the letter on August 25 as an experiment to test the post office’s efficiency. The letter finally arrived at its destination in Dallas — ironically with two postmark stickers bearing images of turtles — on Saturday, four months later.
Other letters were sent at the regular price to the municipalities of Allende, Nuevo León, Múzquiz, Coahuila, and even to a neighborhood in west Monterrey but they have yet to arrive despite being guaranteed delivery within two weeks.
The address in the Monterrey neighborhood to which the letter was sent is only 15 kilometers from the post office where reporters dropped it off.
The letter to Dallas, Reforma said, apparently did not even leave the Monterrey office where it was dropped off until September 11, i.e., 17 days after it was given to postal staff.
The newspaper also highlighted the story of Ernesto Rowe, an American citizen who tried to vote by absentee ballot in the recent U.S. presidential election but was unable to after his mailed-in ballot ended up in limbo in a post office in Mexico City.
Correos Mexico has suffered under competition from private mail services and the technological advances that has reduced the use of postal services around the world. Nevertheless, Reforma said, its snail’s pace is an issue in light of the fact that it managed a budget of 5.4 billion pesos this year. In a recent tour Reforma staff took of post offices in Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara, they found little had been done to modernize operations or provide better service.
The coronavirus risk level in Acapulco has been downgraded to yellow light “medium” even though the resort city leads Guerrero for confirmed cases.
The federal government announced Friday that the risk level in Guerrero would remain orange light “high” for another two weeks but Governor Héctor Astudillo said Sunday that Acapulco, along with state capital Chilpancingo and the coastal municipality of Zihuatanejo – which rank second and third, respectively, for confirmed cases – would be yellow on the state stoplight map as of Monday and until January 10.
Astudillo said the coronavirus numbers for the three locations allowed the government to take the decision — clearly economically-motivated — to make those three municipalities yellow. The other 78 municipalities in Guerrero will remain orange, he said.
Acapulco and Zihuatanejo are Guerrero’s main tourism destinations while Chilpancingo is the state’s second largest city and an important commercial center.
As a result of their yellow designation, hotels in those cities can operate at 70% capacity whereas those in the rest of the state are limited to a 50% maximum. Public transit in the three yellow municipalities can operate at 60% capacity; services in the rest of Guerrero are limited to 50%.
Governor Astudillo said Covid numbers permitted the relaxation of restrictions.
Astudillo said there is a serious coronavirus problem in Guerrero but added that the state cannot deny its tourism vocation.
“We’re an attractive [tourism] hub and we can’t close the highways so that they [tourists] don’t come. What we can do is take care of ourselves and … take care of others,” he said.
“The most complex thing is finding the balance between health and the economy; of course the most important thing is health,” the governor added.
Some 700,000 tourists were expected to flock to Acapulco over the Christmas-New Year vacation period even before Astudillo announced that hotels could increase their occupancy from 50% to 70%. The resort city is now likely to be even busier given that hotels will have more rooms to offer visitors. Acapulco is especially popular with residents of Mexico City, the country’s coronavirus epicenter, heightening the risk of transmission over the holidays.
The southern state has recorded just over 25,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, including almost 11,000 in Acapulco, more than 4,600 in Chilpancingo and almost 1,600 in Zihuatanejo. Guerrero’s official Covid-19 death toll is 2,526.
• Another state gearing up for an influx of tourists is Baja California Sur (BCS). Authorities there have made the use of face masks mandatory in all public places and workplaces while meetings and gatherings of more than 15 people are prohibited.
People who violate health rules face fines and/or other sanctions such as orders to complete community work.
BCS has the highest number of active cases in Mexico on a per capita basis with 108.5 case per 100,000 residents. The state currently has 990 active cases, according to Health Ministry estimates.
It has recorded 16,377 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and 738 Covid-19 deaths.
Ponche navideño is Mexico's version of holiday punch.
Holidays are always a good time to add something new and festive to the table, don’t you think? In Mexico, the winter holidays stretch from December 12, the Festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe, to the Day of the Magi on January 6. I’ve lived in neighborhoods where posadas moved from house to house during that time, and also on one street that was closed each evening so that everyone could gather outside with their neighbors, sharing food and drink, prayers and song.
While this year posadas will most likely be curtailed, there’s no reason why you can’t celebrate in your own home with your own “pod” of people. Ponche navideño and rompope (Mexican eggnog) are both traditional drinks at this time of year and are easily made. Yes, you can buy both drinks bottled, but homemade tastes so much better.
Rompope comes from the Spanish ponche de huevo (literally “egg punch”). Legend says an order of nuns in Puebla came up with the recipe in the 17th century, but their “secret ingredient” remains unknown to this day. (Could it be ground almonds? I wonder …) Rich and velvety, rompope can be served either warm or cold.
Every area of Mexico, and maybe even every family, has its own recipe for Ponche navideño. It’s kind of like mulled wine — fresh and dried fruits and spices simmered in a sweetened alcohol base. It also includes tejocotes (hawthorn fruit), sugarcane, hibiscus flowers and tamarind. The combination is high in Vitamin A and Vitamin C — exactly what we need during the chilly winter months.
While different versions of ponche are served throughout Central and South America, it actually comes from India, where it’s called “pãc,” meaning “five.” That’s based on the five ingredients in any punch: sour, sweet, liquor, water and spice. The British called it “punch,” which became the Spanish ponche.
This variation of ponche features jamaica (hibiscus flowers).
Tejocotes are an unusual fruit you may not have encountered before. The size of a large grape, they look like a crabapple and are yellow or orange. If you find fresh ones, they need to be blanched and peeled, as the skin is quite bitter. They’re also available in jars or frozen, already peeled. If you can’t find them, substitute an Asian pear cut into cubes. Also, tamarind paste can be used instead of fresh tamarind pods. Serve Ponche Navideño garnished with a cinnamon stick and with a spoon so that you can eat the chopped fruit at the bottom of the cup!
Rompope Tradicional
2/3 cup blanched almonds
1½ cups + 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar, divided
6 cups whole milk
2 cinnamon sticks
Rind of 1 lemon
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
¼ tsp. baking soda
8 egg yolks
1 cup white rum or aguardiente
In food processor or blender, pulse almonds with 2 Tbsp. of the sugar until ground to a fine paste. Bring milk, cinnamon, lemon rind, vanilla and baking soda to a boil over medium-high heat in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Reduce to medium-low; simmer for 15–20 minutes. Set aside.
In large bowl, whisk egg yolks, remaining 1½ cups sugar, and ground almond/sugar mixture until thick and pale. Remove cinnamon sticks and lemon rind from milk mix and discard. Whisking constantly, slowly add the milk mixture to yolk mixture.
Return mixture to pan. Cook carefully over low heat, stirring and scraping pan, until thickened, 5–7 minutes. Cool completely, about 2 hours. Add alcohol before serving.
Orange Rompope
8 cups milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Peel from 1 orange
8-12 egg yolks (adjusted to thickness and richness you prefer)
2 cups heavy cream or half and half
1 cup condensed milk
Rum
Combine milk with sugar, vanilla and orange peel in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cook about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Set aside.
Blend or whisk egg yolks with condensed milk until combined. Add cream or half and half and whisk or mix again.
Add a cup of the milk mixture to the egg mix and stir, then add remaining egg mix to milk mixture. Return to heat and cook on low, stirring constantly until mix starts to thicken. (Don’t let it boil.)
Cool completely; stir in alcohol. Refrigerate until ready to serve, warm or cold.
The secret ingredient to this ponche is tejocote (hawthorn fruit).
Ponche Navideño
This is a basic recipe — feel free to fiddle with the amounts of the ingredients.
10 cups water
½ cup jamaica (dried hibiscus flowers)
3 tamarind pods, shell removed
3 small piloncillo cones
8-10 guavas, washed, ends trimmed and halved
8-10 tejocotes OR 1 cup Asian pear, cubed
1 orange, cut into quarters, with skin
1 red apple, cubed small
2 pears, cubed small
1½ cups cubed, peeled sugarcane
7-10 pitted prunes, chopped
Handful of raisins
3-4 cinnamon sticks
4-8 cloves
Brandy or rum
Put water in a large pot; add peeled tamarind pods and jamaica. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10–15 minutes. Remove from stove; strain out the hibiscus and tamarind pods. Put liquid back into the pot.
Push cloves into oranges. (So you can find and remove them later.) If using fresh tejocotes, prepare them as explained above.
Add oranges and all remaining ingredients except alcohol, to the pot. Cover and simmer 30–45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until fruit is tender and piloncillo dissolves. Remove cloves from oranges, returning fruit to pot. Add alcohol individually to each cup when serving.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats is her first book.
The federal government allegedly lied about hospital occupancy levels and the coronavirus positivity rate in Mexico City to avoid having to designate the capital as a red light “maximum” risk state at the start of December.
The government uses 10 different indicators to determine the stoplight color allocated to each of Mexico’s 32 states.
Two of the indicators are hospital occupancy and the coronavirus positivity rate – the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come back positive.
On December 4, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, the federal government’s coronavirus point man, signed a document notifying Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum about the risk level in the capital, The New York Times reported. It was announced that day that Mexico City would remain at the orange light “high” risk level.
In the document, the federal government claimed that 45% of beds with ventilators in the capital were in use, the Times reported. However, official data showed that 58% of such beds were occupied.
The document López-Gatell sent to Sheinbaum also said the positivity rate in Mexico City at the end of November was 25%. But official data showed that the rate was in fact above 35%.
The Times said that if the government used the higher official data rather than the lower figures – whose source is unknown – Mexico City would have reached a score of 33 on the stoplight system. (A state is allocated points for each of the 10 indicators.)
By using the lower bed occupancy and positivity rates, the federal government was able to keep Mexico City’s risk score below the 32-point threshold that triggers a red light declaration.
The Times said in a report published Monday that in response to its repeated requests for information, “government officials would not explain where the unaccountably lower numbers came from.”
The government’s apparent fudging of figures makes a mockery of its stoplight system, which was supposed to provide an objective assessment of the coronavirus risk level.
A large crowd in Mexico City’s historic center on Saturday.
“They have deliberately tried to hide the emergency,” Xavier Tello, a Mexico City-based health policy analyst, told the Times.
“Every day they delayed the decision [to declare Mexico City red], more people were exposed,” he said.
“We are alone, the federal government isn’t helping us — they’re actually taking this lightly,” said Diana Banderas, a Mexico City doctor who treats coronavirus patients. “Now, we are collapsing.”
The government’s motivation for fudging figures and thus avoiding an economic lockdown in the nation’s capital and largest city, at least for two weeks, is clear – it didn’t want to inflict more financial pain on citizens who have already suffered extensively in 2020.
López-Gatell has consistently maintained that strict lockdowns are not viable in Mexico because of the country’s high levels of inequality. Not going out to work on a daily basis means not eating for many people who live hand to mouth.
Sheinbaum also said that her government tried to avoid an end-of-year economic shutdown because “this time of year is really important in terms of families’ finances.”
“We are doing everything within reach, absolutely everything to avoid a situation in which we have to shut down all activities,” she said before Friday’s announcement that the capital was turning red.
The trade-off in delaying a shutdown – deceitfully, it appears – is that more people are placed at risk of contracting the coronavirus, ending up in hospital or even dying.
As is the case around the world, government-mandated coronavirus restrictions have their supporters and detractors.
While health workers are understandably strong proponents of lockdown orders, many workers in Mexico’s vast informal are less enthusiastic.
“As much as the government might want to send us back into isolation, I think the economy here in Mexico wouldn’t allow it,” Óscar Gutiérrez, a Mexico City flower vendor, told the Times.
People are prepared to risk exposure to the virus to ensure they and their families don’t go hungry, he said.
“You’ll die of one thing or the other,” Gutiérrez said. “I’m going to work as long as they let me.”
López Obrador and Biden: 'new stage in the bilateral relationship.'
President López Obrador and United States President-elect Joe Biden committed to work together for the good of Mexico and the U.S. during a telephone conversation on Saturday.
“From the historic town hall of Valladolid, Yucatán, I’ve spoken by telephone with the president-elect of the United States Joseph Biden. We reaffirmed the commitment to work together for the wellbeing of our people and nations,” López Obrador said on Twitter.
The conversation between the two men took place five days after AMLO, as the president is best known, finally congratulated Biden on his victory in last month’s presidential election. López Obrador decided to hold off on congratulating the former U.S. vice president until the Electoral College confirmed his victory over Donald Trump.
Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who accompanied López Obrador during his call to Biden, said the conversation between the pair was “cordial” and that there will be “broad bilateral cooperation and a very good relationship between the presidents of Mexico and the United states.”
In another tweet, Ebrard said that “a new stage in the bilateral relationship” will soon begin.
Biden’s transition team published a readout of the conversation between the president-elect and López Obrador, which said that the former thanked the latter for his congratulations and “expressed his commitment to build a strong relationship with Mexico on a foundation of respect for the rule of law and advancing shared values.”
It also said that Biden “emphasized the need to reinvigorate U.S.-Mexico cooperation to ensure safe and orderly migration, contain Covid-19, revitalize the economies of North America, and secure our common border.”
The president-elect and López Obrador noted a shared desire to address the root causes of migration in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and southern Mexico, the readout said.
Large numbers of people from those three Central American countries have traveled through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States since López Obrador took office in late 2018. The arrival of so-called migrant caravans on the Mexico-United States border angered Trump, prompting him to threaten to impose tariffs on Mexican goods if the Mexican government didn’t do more to stop the people flows.
Biden and López Obrador expressed their desire “to build a future of greater opportunity and security for the region” in order to deter migration.
“They discussed working together on a new approach to regional migration that offers alternatives to undertaking the dangerous journey to the United States,” the readout said.
The president-elect “pledged to work closely with Mexico and other regional partners — including civil society, the private sector, international organizations, and governments — during the early months of his administration to build the regional and border infrastructure and capacity needed to facilitate a new orderly and humane approach to migration that will respect international norms regarding the treatment of asylum claims.”
Biden will be inaugurated as U.S. president on January 20 for a four-year term to conclude in January 2025. By that time, López Obrador’s successor will have been sworn in as Mexico’s 66th president.
