‘How shall we live, what are we going to eat?’

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April 17, 2020

Mexican street corn is a humble delicacy for the country’s citizens and visitors, who delight in the boiled corn cobs, slathered in mayonnaise, lime and chile.

But corn vendors, who have taken an especially hard hit due to the coronavirus pandemic, are now asking the government for help.

In Xochimilco, vendor Agustina says sales are not even coming close to covering costs. “We sell 20, 25 ears of corn, do you think that is enough? When is it going to compare to what we sold before, our two little buckets full?”

Agustina’s husband is an unemployed farmworker, and she is the mother of 11 children. Hers is a hand-to-mouth existence that is no longer viable.

She and around 30 other self-employed merchants, many of whom usually work at sporting events and concerts, took their cases to the National Palace, the doorstep of President López Obrador, asking for financial support.

They were told they needed to make their request in writing, including a list of names of people who no longer had work, so they did just that, hoping for some relief.

“We found out on the news that the president is going to give support to small merchants and that is why we came . . .” said Roberto Tintor.

While only 30 turned up at the National Palace, an estimated 250 people are out of work, said a beer vendor who works in the Foro Sol stadium in Mexico City.

But hope and despair sometimes come hand in hand.

“Supposedly right now phase three is coming and nobody, not even any merchant, will be able to be outside, so what are we going to live on? What are we going to eat?” said Agustina.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Covid-19 cases estimated at 56,000; confirmed cases are up 450 to 6,297

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MND Staff

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April 17, 2020

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Coronavirus cases as of Thursday. An interactive version of the map can be found here.

Almost 56,000 people have had Covid-19 in Mexico since the first case was detected at the end of February, according to Health Ministry estimates, a figure almost nine times higher than the number of confirmed cases of the disease in the country.

“We estimate that 55,951 people have had Covid-19,” Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said at the government’s coronavirus press briefing on Thursday night.

The estimate is derived from the sentinel surveillance system in which data about a disease is collected in certain locations and extrapolated to predict total numbers across the country. Health authorities are collecting data about confirmed and possible cases of Covid-19 at 375 different health care facilities.

The estimate presented on Thursday is more than two times higher than that presented last week when the Health Ministry estimated that there were 26,519 Covid-19 cases in Mexico.

Based on the estimated number of Covid-19 cases, the fatality rate in Mexico is 0.87 per 100 cases, López-Gatell said. If only confirmed cases of the disease are considered, the case fatality rate is a much higher 7.72.

Earlier in the press briefing, Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomía reported that the number of confirmed cases had increased by 450 to 6,297 and the coronavirus death toll had risen by 37 to 486.

He also said that there are 12,340 suspected cases of Covid-19 and that 101 deaths were possibly caused by the disease but have not yet been confirmed. If the deaths are found to have been caused by Covid-19, they will be added to the coronavirus death toll, Alomía said.

Hypertension, diabetes and obesity continue to be the most common existing health problems in those who have died.

Covid-19 patients aged 60 or older are three times more likely to die than those aged 25-59, according to Health Ministry data that shows that the fatality rate among the former cohort is 17.6 per 100 cases and 5.7 among the latter. The case fatality rate among people younger than 25 is 0.3.

With 1,828 confirmed Covid-19 cases and and 110 deaths, Mexico City is the worst affected entity in the country. México state ranks second for both cases and deaths with 695 and 46, respectively.

Baja California has the third highest number of cases with 505 but ranks fifth for deaths with 31. Sinaloa and Puebla have the third and fourth highest coronavirus death tolls in the country with 40 and 32 fatalities, respectively.

The Health Ministry also presented data from Google that showed that the number of people using public transit across Mexico has declined by about 63% since the government declared a health emergency at the end of March. Health promotion chief Ricardo Cortés said that Quintana Roo has recorded the biggest decline while Querétaro has seen the smallest decrease in public transit use.

Meanwhile, General Health Council secretary José Ignacio Sántos defended the council’s Bioethical Guide to Allocation of Critical Medicine Resources, asserting that it is “legally solid” and backed by experts.

The guide came under fire this week because it suggests that younger Covid-19 patients who need critical care should be prioritized over seniors when medical resources such as ventilators are limited.

Source: Milenio (sp)

463 municipalities identified for application of phase three

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MND Staff

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April 16, 2020

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López-Gatell: coronavirus hot spots are areas where there is higher transmission. — López-Gatell: coronavirus hotspots are areas where there are higher rates of transmission.

Phase three measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 will apply to 463 municipalities with significant outbreaks before the government officially declares the commencement of the most critical stage of the coronavirus pandemic, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Thursday.

Speaking at President López Obrador’s morning news conference, López-Gatell said the government was bringing the measures forward for the coronavirus hotspots.

“We have said that reaching phase three is unavoidable; we’re technically not yet in phase three in a generalized way but … given the intensity of transmission, there are areas that have to be treated like phase three,” he said.

López-Gatell said that the 16 boroughs of Mexico City, México state municipalities that are part of the greater metropolitan area of the capital, the Baja California cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, Jalisco capital Guadalajara, Nuevo León capital Monterrey, Puebla city and the Quintana Roo resort city Cancún have the highest rates of Covid-19 transmission in the country.

Culiacán, Sinaloa; Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua; Monclova, Coahuila; and Villahermosa, Tabasco, are also among the municipalities that will see phase three measures before the government officially declares the commencement of the critical stage of the pandemic in which the number of Covid-19 cases is predicted to rise rapidly.

“Phase three is defined by the generalization of transmission [across the country] not by the number of cases. … If we look [at Mexico] in subregions, we have regions like the Valley of México, and the metropolitan areas that I’ve mentioned where we have [Covid-19] spread that corresponds to phase three,” López-Gatell said.

After declaring on Tuesday that it was only a matter of days before Mexico would enter phase three of the pandemic, the deputy minister said that the government wasn’t considering the possibility of a phase three declaration that only applied to certain parts of the country. A “selective process would be confusing,” he said.

However, López-Gatell said this morning that the imposition of stricter restrictions on people’s movement was recommended for parts of the country where there are larger outbreaks of Covid-19.

To date, however, the federal government has not announced any obligatory home quarantine or a curfew, although the state of Sonora has imposed its own mandatory lockdown.

López-Gatell did announce this morning that the government’s social distancing initiative, including the suspension of all nonessential activities and large gatherings, will be extended by an extra month to May 30.

However, restrictions could be lifted on May 17 in areas of the country where transmission of the disease is low or non-existent, López-Gatell said, explaining that 979 of Mexico’s 2,463 municipalities have not yet reported infections.

He stressed that strict “stay at home” orders remain in place for senior citizens, people with chronic diseases and pregnant women. Schools are currently scheduled to reopen on June 1.

López-Gatell said that Mexico City has seen significant reductions in traffic, public transport use and pedestrian numbers but acknowledged that people’s movement has not declined as much as the government hoped in other cities around the country such as Guadalajara and Tijuana.

Although an average of 380 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported daily over the last week, the deputy minister said that the government was “having success” with the social distancing measures it has implemented.

He said that projections show that the peak of transmission of the disease will be between May 8 and 10 and that the greatest pressure on the health system will come about two weeks later.

By June 25, around 95% of all expected Covid-19 cases in Mexico will have occurred, López-Gatell said, citing projections that assume that mitigation measures are generally followed.

Mexico currently has 5,847 confirmed cases of coronavirus and has recorded 449 deaths.

Source: Reforma (sp), Infobae (sp)

Street vendors adjust to the times, turn to selling face masks

By

Cody Copeland

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April 16, 2020

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Amadeo Vidal sells masks on the street in Acapulco.

With life on pause during the quarantine period, vendors in Mexico’s normally bustling informal street economy have had to adapt to shifting market trends in order to continue to make a living each day.

Street vendors across the country have turned to selling face masks to meet the growing demand for the personal protective equipment (PPE) and make up for the lack of demand for the products they normally sell.

Amadeo Vidal, 75, normally sells donuts in downtown Acapulco while his wife walks the beaches selling clothing, but they have changed tack in recent weeks.

She now works at making face masks while Amadeo heads to press conferences, roadblocks, protests and other events where people still gather to sell them for 5 pesos (US $0.21) a piece.

He carries the individually plastic-wrapped masks in a cardboard box and wears one himself to maintain sanitary standards.

Meja sells masks and gel at his stand in Mazatlán. — Meza sells masks and gel at his stand in Mazatlán.

Daniel Abundez of Cuernavaca has set up a similar operation with his dressmaker neighbor now that he can’t sell cosmetics in the mobile street markets called tianguis. She makes face masks with the fabric she normally uses to sew dresses while Daniel hits the streets to sell them.

“I at least sell enough [for us] to eat. Really, I can’t complain, but [I don’t earn] more than that. Just enough to survive,” he said.

A 30-year veteran street vendor in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, named Ángel Ricardo Meza has also found success selling face masks and antibacterial hand gel, despite seeing rising prices.

“Everything is expensive, everything has doubled, like a liter of alcohol that you could previously get for 37 or 38 pesos is now like 120 pesos,” he said.

Meza knows he is risking his health by setting up his temporary booth outside the now closed Pino Suárez market, but he’ll continue to do so as long as sales keep up.

“I’m taking a risk, but I have to earn some money. While it’s allowed, I’ll remain here,” he said.

Vendors in Gómez Palacio, Durango, and Torreón, Coahuila, have taken to selling face masks on the Puente Plateado bridge that connects the two cities divided by the Nazas River.

Both cities have mandated the use of face masks in public and health authorities have set up a screening checkpoint on the bridge, so vendors are able to sell the masks to drivers for 15-100 pesos, depending on the quality.

The demand for PPE on the street has grown so high that the business is attracting even those who don’t normally rely on selling to get by.

One man in Mexico City whose normal job is fighting as a masked luchador named El Hijo del Espectro Jr. has also joined the face mask market, obviously adding a bit of Mexican wrestling flair by designing them after the mask he wears in the ring.

“Just in March I had 12 dates set in various arenas — none of them happened — and in April a dozen more. That’s why we got to looking for another way to move forward with something that can help people and be decorative at the same time,” he said.

But unlike the street vendors walking along rows of idling cars, the luchador is using the influence of his wrestling persona to promote the masks, selling them via his Facebook page and other social media accounts.

Sources: La Jornada (sp), El Sol de Cuernavaca (sp), El Sol de Mazatlán (sp), El Sol de La Laguna (sp) Milenio (sp)

AMLO urges passage of amnesty law to reduce contagion in prisons

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MND Staff

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April 16, 2020

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prison inmates — As many as 8,800 inmates could be freed.

President López Obrador on Wednesday urged the Senate to approve his amnesty law so that prisoners aged over 60, those with chronic diseases, incarcerated pregnant women and others who didn’t commit serious crimes can leave jail to reduce prison populations amid the coronavirus pandemic.

López Obrador called on ruling party Senate leader Ricardo Monreal to schedule a vote on the law, which was passed by the lower house of Congress in December.

“It’s urgent that the amnesty law be approved because it will benefit older adults, among others … because they didn’t commit serious crimes,” he said.

López Obrador said last September that the law was designed to benefit people of modest means who were incarcerated without having access to an adequate legal defense. Women imprisoned for having an abortion, perpetrators of minor drug offenses and people who committed crimes that didn’t involve violence could be eligible for release if the law is passed.

Monreal said later on Wednesday that the legislative majority in the Senate – a coalition of parties led by Morena – will propose that the upper house sit to approve the amnesty law and help to reduce the possibility of large outbreaks of Covid-19 in the nation’s jails. Many of Mexico’s penitentiaries are severely overcrowded.

In a video message, Monreal pledged that the Senate will “find the legal mechanisms” to pass the amnesty law. However, if the law is not promptly approved, the president has the option to pardon prisoners and order their early release, he said.

Interior Minister Olga Sánchez said in December that some 6,200 prisoners in Mexico’s 17 federal and 292 state prisons would be eligible for release in accordance with the amnesty law. An additional 2,600 inmates were under consideration to receive a presidential pardon, she said.

The total number of prisoners that could be released if the amnesty law is passed would be 8,800 or approximately 4% of Mexico’s prison population, which was 211,000 in 2016, according to the national statistics institute.

María Sirvent Bravo, head of the social justice organization Documenta, said the government should already be making use of the pardon and early release provisions to reduce prison populations as Mexico’s coronavirus outbreak worsens.

She said there are 3,500 prisoners in Mexico City alone who are not incarcerated for serious crimes and are among cohorts of the population considered more vulnerable to Covid-19.

Héctor Carreón Herrera, an academic at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences, agreed that inmates who are more vulnerable to developing serious Covid-19 symptoms and who are not imprisoned for serious crimes should be released. He added that indigenous people and those with disabilities should also be considered for release.

Carreón explained that those released would still have to comply with other aspects of their sentences such as the payment of compensation to victims.

The National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said on Wednesday night that six inmates in Mexican prisons have tested positive for coronavirus. Five are imprisoned in México state and one is in a Yucatán jail.

The CNDH also said that there are 24 suspected cases of Covid-19 among inmates in a Tamaulipas prison.

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

Restaurant owner breaks down as he tell staff there’s no more money

By

Cody Copeland

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April 16, 2020

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Sesma: 30 years of work comes falling down in just a few weeks.

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to take its toll on the economy, inevitably hitting low-wage earners and small businesses the hardest.

Yesterday it left a Sonora restaurant owner in tears for being forced to choose between continuing to pay his employees and saving his business.

Ramón Sesma Coronado employs 80 people in his two Chiltepinos restaurants and family-owned accounting firm in Hermosillo, but being forced to limit service to take-out and delivery has tanked his monthly sales to just 0.5% of what they were before the pandemic.

“It pains my heart to tell you all that this is the last time I’ll be able to pay you,” he says in a video posted to Facebook. With tears in his eyes he tells them that “it would be impossible to continue doing so because when this is all over … you’re not going to have a company to come back to.”

He sits at what appears to be a table at one of his restaurants, wearing latex gloves and a face mask, seemingly too emotional to look directly into the camera for much of the 14-minute video.

“Being a businessman in Mexico is one of the most afflicted and painful professions. You risk your capital, you take out loans, you mortgage your properties or what little you have, and you risk it all for a dream, to give people jobs,” he tells his employees.

Sesma, 50, expressed sadness at seeing 30 years of hard work come crumbling down in a matter of weeks, an event that he interprets as “a sign from God for us to wake up, because we were asleep.”

He must still cover expenses such as taxes, social security and electricity despite having almost no revenue coming in, a situation he describes as “unsustainable.”

He made a direct appeal to his employees toward the end of his discourse, asking them “What do I do? What do you all want me to do with the last bit of money I’ve got left? Should I pay taxes and social security, or should I pay you?

“These tears are not tears of weakness, they are of rage, of frustration. … If I keep running out of what I’ve got, you aren’t going to have anywhere to return to.”

Source: El Universal (sp)

Health workers fear breakdown of system in Mulegé, BCS

By

Susy Buchanan

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April 16, 2020

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Hospital staff protest shortages in Mulegé. — Hospital staff protest shortages in the Baja California Sur municipality.

Located in the northern part of Baja California Sur, (BCS) seven hours by car from the state’s capital of La Paz, Mulegé is, quite literally, an oasis in the desert.

Founded by Jesuits in the early 1700s on the banks of the Santa Rosalía river, the town of around 4,000 people has seen its economy shift from fishing and agriculture to tourism in recent years.

But these days visitors are decidedly not welcome. Townspeople have barricaded the road.

The threat of coronavirus became a reality when Mulegé registered its first case last week, and an outbreak could easily decimate the municipality’s nearly nonexistent medical structure.

“We don’t have any specialists, we don’t have labs, we don’t have x-rays, we don’t have supplies. We are being sent to war without weapons,” said Doctor Jose Antonio Espinoza Tirado.

Espinoza and around 100 doctors from the nearby town of Santa Rosalía, population 15,000, are working under protest due to the pandemic, taking five minutes of silence each day to express their dissatisfaction. They have been asking the government for adequate medical supplies for the past year, even before coronavirus became a reality.

The municipality of Mulegé has about 60,000 residents, but the hospital only has three ventilators, says Espinoza.

“Imagine if a patient were to become seriously ill, and we don’t have what we need here,” he said. “What they have sent us isn’t enough.”

On April 15, Mayor Felipe Prado Bautista railed on social media against residents who are not respecting the quarantine and refuse to stay at home.

“This Saturday and Sunday, whoever walks the streets without any justifiable reason, instead of an economic sanction, what do you think about 12 hours of social service [in the cleaning area] of a hospital or clinic in the municipality?” he posted.

The entire state of BCS is reeling from the effects of coronavirus, with the highest number of cases per capita in all of Mexico — 20.38 per 100,000 residents. The state currently has 158 confirmed cases and has recorded six deaths.

Source: BCS Noticias (sp), El Universal (sp)

Mexico one step away from losing investment grade rating

By

MND Staff

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April 16, 2020

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Fitch Ratings cut Mexico’s sovereign rating on Wednesday to just one notch above non-investment grade due to fears that the coronavirus pandemic will cause a “severe recession” in the Mexican economy.

Mexico’s rating is now BBB- with a stable outlook.

“The economic shock represented by the coronavirus pandemic will lead to a severe recession in Mexico in 2020,” Fitch said in a statement, adding that a recovery starting in the second half of the year “will likely be held back by the same factors that have hampered recent economic performance.”

The Mexican economy contracted 0.1% last year, the first decline since 2009, the year of the world financial crisis when GDP fell 5.3%.

Fitch is forecasting the economy will contract by at least 4% this year but noted that “given the nature of the crisis there is a higher than usual level of uncertainty around our forecasts, and the balance of risks is firmly to the downside.”

It said that the extent of the contraction and the scope for recovery will depend on two factors: the performance of the economy in the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner, and the duration of the “virus shock” domestically.

Fitch is also predicting that government debt will increase to 4.4% of GDP, adding that the level would be “higher than implied by the most recent budget review” and that there is “little scope for consolidation in 2021.”

“Consolidating public finances once the [coronavirus] crisis is over and returning debt/GDP to a sustainable path will prove challenging in Fitch’s view,” the rating agency said.

It said that factors that held back investment prior to the coronavirus crisis, “including weak governance and ad hoc government policy interventions,” are likely to persist once it is over.

The rating agency also said that the state oil company, currently saddled with debt of US $105 billion or 9% of GDP, “remains a key risk factor, particularly in view of the sharp fall in oil prices.”

On a positive note, Fitch said that “the credible monetary policy framework built around a flexible exchange rate and inflation targeting remains a rating strength and will help the economy absorb the external shock.”

The ratings agency also said that it expected trade to help the economy to recover, noting that the new North American trade agreement, the USMCA, is scheduled to take effect in the middle of the year. That will relieve uncertainty that has prevailed since 2016, Fitch said.

The newspaper El Financiero reported that Fitch’s downgrading of Mexico’s sovereign rating only had a moderate impact on the peso, which was trading at about 24.2 to the United States dollar early on Thursday afternoon.

The cut came after S&P Global Ratings downgraded Mexico’s sovereign rating to BBB from BBB+ in the last week of March.

Alonso Cervera, chief Latin America economist for Credit Suisse, said that he believed that it won’t be long before Moody’s, the third major rating agency, also cuts its rating for Mexico.

Mexico’s current sovereign rating with Moody’s is A3, four notches above non-investment grade.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Suspected gangster was senior staffer in Cuernavaca government

By

Cody Copeland

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April 16, 2020

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Aparicio was arrested this week along with a lieutenant of the gang. — Aparicio was arrested this week along with a suspected gang leader.

A Morelos man arrested on Monday night for alleged involvement in organized crime worked as a senior staffer in the Cuernavaca municipal government, prompting accusations of a cover-up by Mayor Francisco Antonio Villalobos Adán.

Juan David Aparicio Sotelo began working for the municipal government as director of the Jardines de la Paz public cemetery on January 1, 2019, and left the position on March 30 of this year.

He was arrested in an operation to take down Crispín “El Cris” Gaspar Corté, presumed lieutenant in the Guerreros Unidos criminal gang, a known ally of the violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Police arrested Aparicio, Gaspar and two other men at a gas station in Cuernavaca while responding to a 911 call about a kidnapping in the area.

At least one early media report claimed Villalobos had been aware of and kept quiet about the criminal connection in his administration, prompting municipal secretary Erik Salgado to state that the mayor had no knowledge of Aparicio’s link to the Guerreros Unidos.

Aparicio is known to have participated in a 2017 march to protest the arrest of José Manuel Gaspar, son of El Cris, who had been detained in an operation in Temixco in which four women, one teenager and a baby were killed.

That operation took place on property owned by El Cris, believed to be responsible for much of the violence in Temixco and the southeastern part of the state.

Salgado said that Aparicio voluntarily left his post in the municipal government for personal reasons.

Sources: La Silla Rota (sp), El Universal (sp)

IMSS doctors warn they will strike if supplies shortages not resolved

By

Susy Buchanan

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April 16, 2020

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Zacatecas surgeon and union leader Rosales.

Health workers in at least 15 states are threatening to go on strike if the director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) does not provide healthcare workers with proper personal protective equipment.

Armando Rosales Torres, a neurosurgeon in Zacatecas and leader of the IMSS employees union, says the strike warning is no bluff.

“It is not politics, it has nothing to do with politics, nor with unions, this is a legitimate demand by IMSS workers,” Rosales said.

And if a strike doesn’t get health workers what they need, the IMSS union is also contemplating legal action.

“We are going to proceed criminally against [director] Zoé Robledo because of the enormous number of doctors and nurses in the country who are getting coronavirus due to the lack of equipment to protect them while doing their work,” Rosales said.

The union leader said he has been in talks with colleagues throughout the country since last Monday and is giving Robledo a week to respond to the union’s demands.

If equipment the government says it has ordered from overseas — including shipments from China — has indeed arrived in Mexico, Rosales wants to see it.

“The situation inside IMSS hospitals is still very precarious and the risks of contagion for doctors, nurses, workers, and even patients continue to be high due to their exposure to those infected with coronavirus,” Rosales said.

Rosales has been openly critical of inadequate supplies, lack of pandemic protocol, and poor leadership on the part of the health service for weeks, posting videos to social media where he denounced the system, pointing out that staff at his hospital was given one protective mask they were told to make last for 15 days.

As an example of the lack of effective leadership in establishing protocols, Rosales cited a patient at the state’s main hospital who tested positive for coronavirus and died two days after being admitted.

He was treated in the hospital’s general ward and never isolated. Shortly after, a patient apparently suffering from pneumonia was placed in the same bed.

If the government doesn’t take the lives of health workers seriously, there could be potentially deadly consequences.

“If in a week they do not resolve the situation,” Rosales reiterated, “we are going to go on a national strike because we cannot continue like this, especially now as we enter phase three of the virus.”

Mexico has 5,847 reported cases of coronavirus and has recorded 449 deaths.

Source: Zacatecas Online (sp), La Jornada (sp)