Authorities in Oaxaca have announced that they have obtained 10,000 Covid-19 rapid tests and that a range of businesses must close across the state to limit the spread of the contagious disease.
Health Minister Donato Casas said that only one state-run laboratory is authorized to carry out coronavirus tests.
“In our state laboratory we can carry out up to 40 tests in five hours with the technology we have,” he said.
With regard to limiting the outbreak of coronavirus in Oaxaca, where there were four confirmed cases as of Tuesday, Governor Alejandro Murat said that stricter measures need to be imposed because the disease could now be spreading among the community.
He said that he had issued a decree for all bars, movie theaters, sports centers, gyms and museums to close temporarily in all of Oaxaca’s 570 municipalities. Businesses that flout the restriction will be closed and fined, the governor said.
Police in Oaxaca city are already asking people who are outside without a valid reason to return to their homes and state authorities will now ask their municipal counterparts to enforce the same restriction in other parts of the state.
Predicting that the health crisis would last 12 weeks, Murat said that “the most important thing today is social distancing and isolation.”
He also said that the government is taking steps to ensure that families have the financial means to get through a prolonged partial shutdown of the economy. However, the governor stressed that people’s health must be prioritized.
“We will overcome the economic [impact] but we can never recover a [lost] life,” Murat said.
Schools in Oaxaca – as in all other states – are now closed for extended Easter holidays and large events have been postponed or canceled. Murat said that health checks have been ramped up at airports and bus stations, and that public transit services have been reduced by half.
The governor highlighted that Oaxaca has four new hospitals that are jointly run by the army and the state government. The new facilities have set aside 200 beds for Covid-19 patients in serious condition, he said.
“No other state has four new hospitals to respond to this pandemic,” Murat said, adding that they are equipped with modern medical equipment and sufficient supplies.
He also said that his government has reached an agreement with several companies for food to be provided to people who are struggling financially due to the coronavirus-fueled downturn in the economy.
Once the health crisis passes, 3.6 billion pesos (US $150.4 million) will be invested in infrastructure projects to help revitalize the economy, Murat said.
Asylum seekers wait outside the COMAR offices in the center of Tapachula. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
Asylum seekers in Chiapas are being told to go home or endure months in detention centers where they are denied basic needs such as water, clean sanitation and access to health care. Those who file a claim for international protection must wait months for the outcome, during which time they have to navigate a complex system and many struggle to access their basic rights.
Mexico does not currently have, and has no plans to introduce, a cap on asylum applications, according to Andrés Ramirez, head of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). However, since June 2019 there has been a change in policy aimed at restricting the migrant flow through the country. So while COMAR’s budget is a fraction of what is needed to investigate asylum claims efficiently, the National Immigration Institute (INM) has been given additional support in the form of the National Guard and the army.
In May 2019, the U.S. government threatened to impose increasing tariffs on Mexican goods “unless and until Mexico substantially stops the illegal inflow of aliens coming through its territory.” The following month, the government launched the Migration and Development Plan, and by November 2019, Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard boasted of a reduction in the flow of migrants from south to north from 144,116 (in May) to 42,710.
Publicly this reduction has been attributed to employment programs and rescuing migrants from traffickers. However, it is also likely to be, at least in part, due to the harsh conditions that migrants must endure to obtain international protection in Mexico.
Detainees are given the “choice” of returning home to face the life-threatening situations that they fled or enduring months of difficult conditions in detention. Some of those “rescued” by the INM choose not to request asylum rather than spend months in a detention center.
Yoni, a Honduran woman, said that her unaccompanied teenage daughter was told she would have to stay in Siglo XXI for ”two to five months” while applying for asylum. On seeing the conditions, her daughter asked to be sent home. It was nine more days before the teenager was allowed to phone anyone and 26 days of detention before she was finally deported.
Those who do stay at Siglo XXI are faced with medical neglect. Dr. Arturo Nepomeceno Lozano, the assistant deputy director at Tapachula hospital, said the doctors at Siglo XXI do not appear to be attending to the detainees. His hospital regularly sees patients with urinary tract infections caused by severe dehydration, or diarrhea or bronchitis. He has treated patients who have been “told to stand in the sun while they are denied shade or water.”
One mother from El Salvador wept as she told how her 9-year-old daughter’s appendix had burst inside Siglo XXI. The girl suffered from “increasing stomach pains and fever for 13 days … before she was finally transferred to the hospital, after the pain had left her unable to stand. The other detainees threatened to revolt if the girl was not given medical attention.”
“The doctor didn’t even physically examine my child,” the woman said. “He just gave us some antibiotics that did nothing to reduce the fever or the pain. The doctor accused her of faking the illness and being a spoiled child.”
The girl, who went on to spend six weeks in the hospital, was diagnosed with a ruptured appendix, peritonitis and typhoid. She required three operations to remove and repair a significant part of her intestines as a result of the serious infection that had spread from her appendix. “The doctors have said that it is possible she won’t be able to have children,” her mother said through tears.
It wasn’t just medical neglect that the girl had to endure. Before being transferred, the staff in the detention center “forced her to stand outside in the rain when she had a fever,” said her mother.
COMAR’s Andrés Ramírez explains the asylum system in his office in Mexico City. Lexie Harrison-Cripps
When the Salvadoran mother was finally allowed to accompany her daughter to the hospital, she was not allowed to bring her other three children, all under the age of 13. She was forced to leave them unaccompanied in the detention center and was denied any form of communication with them until three days later when they were unexpectedly delivered late one night to the hospital.
Siria Villator belongs to the Fray Matías Human Rights Center, one of the few organizations in Chiapas that has been granted access to Siglo XXI. She is granted restricted access to a common area but not to the main living areas. She said “it was bad before but now it is really bad.” She has heard about cells used for “solitary confinement as punishment.” INM spokeswoman Natalia Gómez denies that there are any such cells or that punishments are meted out.
Jonny, 18, spent seven and a half months in the detention center. He says was regularly called a “fucking migrant” and staff would throw bars of soap at his face. “But [the staff] are not all bad — maybe only 40% of them,” he said in an attempt to be lighthearted.
Detainees at Siglo XXI also talk of unsanitary conditions. In one dormitory dozens of people sleep on mattresses on the floor, covered only with dirty sheets. A young man from Honduras explained that the turnaround is so fast that the new arrivals sleep in beds with old soiled linen from the previous occupants.
The INM also has the ability to detain undocumented migrants in temporary holding facilities called estancias provisionales. These shelters have a capacity for 10 people and are designed for holding periods of less than 48 hours, confirmed Brenda Ochoa, who has permission to visit the detention facilities as a representative of Fray Matías. She says conditions are frequently overcrowded and the cells are “used as a punishment.” On one visit, “there were over 40 people, including pregnant women, being held in in the cell, meaning that not all of them could lie down at once.”
In their rush to flee desperate circumstances, asylum seekers are in most cases unable to prepare for the complicated bureaucratic process that awaits them.
“Most asylum seekers will have left their home suddenly with little savings, planning or information,” explained Florian Heopfner of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “Very few people will understand the process,” he said.
The process involves an understanding of the two government departments: the INM and COMAR. Asylum applications are managed by COMAR whereas deportations and detentions are managed by the INM. COMAR has a presence in only four federal entities: Mexico City, Chiapas, Veracruz and Tabasco; the INM is present across Mexico and is supported by the police, the National Guard and the army.
“We didn’t know how things worked or what the COMAR office was when we arrived,” explained a 23-year old Honduran father. He, his 20-year-old wife and 10-month-old daughter were detained for 22 days inside Siglo XXI after a week of sleeping rough in Tapachula. “It’s like a prison,” he said. “They lied to us when we arrived. They said we would have to stay (in the detention center) for at least three months if we wanted asylum.”
The young father stayed in a male dormitory, shared with dozens of others, and his wife and child stayed together in a separate area; each day, they were allowed to spend one hour together as a family. The young mother said she was “allowed only three diapers per day” and so was “forced to leave her baby in soiled diapers” when she ran out.
In cases where asylum seekers cannot get to a COMAR office, the INM has a duty to inform the refugee commission of their request for asylum, explained Andrés Ramírez, head of COMAR.
However, the INM doesn’t always provide this information , leading to a bureaucratic wall between the asylum seeker and protection.
Institute spokesperson Gómez acknowledged that these are not the first complaints that have been made, but she said the INM has “no ability to investigate complaints.” She asserted that “the only way an investigation could happen would be if a formal complaint is made to the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH).”
The CNDH has investigated 36 complaints regarding the INM in Chiapas since the beginning of the year. However, in Ochoa’s experience, many people are unwilling to make formal complaints as they believe it will affect their asylum status.
This is the first of a two-part series that examines the unofficial barriers that serve to discourage people from filing claims for asylum.
Paseo de la Reforma will be the site of new projects.
The Mexico City government has authorized the construction of 17 real estate projects along the capital’s most emblematic boulevard as part of efforts to combat the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The government gave the green light for 14 projects on Paseo de la Reforma in the central borough of Cuauhtémoc, as well as three along the avenue’s extension in the boroughs of Álvaro Obregón and Cuajimalpa.
A notice published in the government’s official gazette on Tuesday said that developers must register their interest in building one or more projects within 15 days. If their application is approved, they must commence construction within 30 days of the lifting of restrictions put in place to limit the spread of Covid-19.
Signed by Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the notice said that the projects, as a result of their “nature and location,” have the potential to stimulate the economy.
The developers will be required to obtain all environmental and other permits that apply to construction projects. The government also said that the projects must be sustainable, incorporating features such as solar panels, rainwater collection systems and green walls.
The developers should seek to offer jobs to people who live near the area where the project will be built, the government said.
They will also be required to provide information about their projects to people who live and work in the area within 15 days of commencing construction. The information can be provided either online or in booths set up near the construction site.
Economic activity is expected to decrease significantly as a result of the outbreak of Covid-19 in Mexico and the measures put in place to contain it. Unemployment is expected to increase in April and tens of thousands of businesses in Mexico City alone are predicted to close.
The Mexico City government has ordered the closure of many non-essential businesses as well as the cancellation or postponement of large events, and is encouraging residents to stay home as much as possible.
There were 66 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the capital as of Tuesday, more than any other federal entity.
President López Obrador claimed on Wednesday that there was corruption in the granting of permits to the United States beverage company Constellation Brands for the construction of a brewery in Mexicali, Baja California.
López Obrador made the accusation at his regular news conference, two days after the government announced that it would halt the US $1.4-billion project because about three-quarters of voters opposed it in a referendum last weekend.
“Of course there was [corruption]. … It’s just a matter of thinking: how can a permit be given to build a brewery that uses water where there is a shortage of water?” he said.
The project was given the green light by the government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was in office from 2012 to 2018. Farmers and other Baja California residents opposed it on the grounds that it would threaten the local water supply, a claim that the company consistently rejected.
Both the Ministry of Environment and the National Water Commission said last week the brewery would not have an adverse effect on the region’s water supply.
But the concern now is not water but future investment.
López Obrador asserted that the decision not to allow Constellation to open its Mexicali brewery would not hurt Mexico’s prospects of attracting new investment.
On the contrary, he said, putting an end to corruption and establishing an “authentic rule of law” will allow Mexico to lure more private and foreign capital.
Business groups, on the other hand, say that the cancellation of the brewery, where Constellation planned to make beers such as Corona and Pacífico to export to the United States, will hurt investment.
“Production of the most famous Mexican beer in the world is prohibited in Mexico – who’s going to want to invest in a country with such contradictions and absurdities?” asked Mexican Employers Federation President Gustavo de Hoyos.
López Obrador, who also canceled the previous government’s new Mexico City airport project after a controversial public consultation, told reporters that it was unclear whether the federal government would have to pay compensation to Constellation, which has invested about $900 million in the brewery.
He said that a decision about compensation would not be made until the government meets with representatives of the company and carries out a review of how the brewery permits were granted. The president added that he is willing to listen to Constellation’s point of view about the consultation and cancellation of the brewery, which is about 70% complete and was expected to begin operations at the end of 2021.
The company said in a statement Tuesday that it had listened to the government’s “messages ” and was ready to meet with López Obrador and his cabinet to discuss alternatives.
Constellation “will continue working with local authorities, government officials and members of the community on next steps related to our brewery construction project in Mexicali and options elsewhere in Mexico,” said CEO Bill Newlands.
The governor of Nayarit has already extended an invitation to Constellation to invest there, highlighting that there is sufficient water in the Pacific coast state to support a brewery.
A pair of armored trucks transporting ingots of a gold/silver alloy were attacked and robbed by a commando of armed men in Caborca, Sonora, on Monday.
The precious metals for the ingots, called doré bars, had been extracted from the La Herradura mine, operated by the Canadian mining company Penmont.
The SEPSA security company trucks were intercepted by a convoy of at least 10 vehicles around 2:00 p.m. on Monday. The assailants blocked the highway with a truck to force the armored cars to stop.
The six SEPSA employees were assaulted by the thieves. One sustained minor wounds requiring hospitalization, while the others were treated by paramedics and released at the scene.
Penmont did not release the market value of the doré bars that were stolen.
It was not the first instance of highway robbery of precious metals mined by Penmont in the area. Thieves stole 47 doré bars in November of last year from another Penmont-owned mine.
The estimated 722 kilograms of doré stolen in November were from the Noche Buena mine, not far from La Herradura, and valued at around US $8 million according to the exchange rate and gold price at that time.
The open-pit La Herradura mine is in the Sonoran Desert about 20 kilometers east of the popular Gulf of California tourist destination Puerto Peñasco, Sonora.
The foundation run by renowned businessman Carlos Slim has announced that it will donate 1 billion pesos (US $41 million) for medical resources and public health education to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
The organization said in a press release that the donation will go toward the purchase of medical equipment to treat patients in intensive-care units, such as ventilators, sonograms and video-laryngoscopes, in government hospitals across the country.
The donation will also fund personal protection equipment, or PPE, such as gloves and face masks, sanitation and disinfection operations in public hospitals, improving the country’s diagnostic capacity and restructuring of the health system.
It will also support the Public Education Ministry with its PruebaT (T-Test) online educational platform, by which it can educate children about how to protect themselves and others from spreading the virus.
For customers and employees in essential businesses that must remain open, the donation will fund educational materials about general risk prevention and hygienic practices they can follow both at work and at home.
It will also finance special medical attention for the elderly, people with chronic underlying conditions and pregnant women.
In addition the foundation announced that any employees of Carlos Slim’s companies with symptoms of a respiratory infection, or those who have been confirmed to have the coronavirus or who have had contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19, will be obliged to self-quarantine in their homes.
His companies have also implemented new hygiene policies to prevent transmission of the disease, such as frequent cleaning of work spaces, allowing employees to work at home when possible, and canceling business trips, meetings and other events.
The arrival of Covid-19 in Mexico has triggered panic buying and looting but not all Mexicans can get their hands on the essentials they would need to ride out a quarantine to contain the spread of the disease.
Among those who are worried about having enough food and other supplies to survive a lockdown are residents of working-class neighborhoods in the northern city of Hermosillo, Sonora.
“I’m not prepared,” Claudia Camarena, a 32-year-old mother of six, told the newspaper El Universal in the neighborhood of Luis Donaldo Colosio.
Even though her husband works one job in construction and another as a gas station security guard, Camarena said that the only way her family would be able to stock up enough for an extended quarantine would be to borrow money.
She also said that her family would struggle to survive if her husband were to stop working or if he lost one of his two jobs. Camarena added that the main sustenance for her children – aged 1 to 12 – is nothing more than beans.
Rita Aurelia García, a 43-year-old resident of the same neighborhood, is in a similar situation.
“I don’t even know what I’m going to eat today — beans, I think,” she told El Universal.
“People are buying everything but there’s no money here. My husband goes to a tortilla shop and sells them in the street. He does it all day and only when he arrives, almost at night, can we buy what we’re going to eat,” García said.
“We can’t buy food to store like … a lot of people do. There are five of us here. One of my sons went away to work and one of my daughters got married but there are [still] five of us living here. … We struggle to eat, so we’re afraid [of a quarantine]” she added.
In the nearby neighborhood of El Chaparral, a 68-year-old woman identified only as Victoria spoke to El Universal after picking up a free 1-kilo bag of beans from the Salvation Army.
“Rich people can buy [as much as they need but] we don’t have anything, not even to get through the day,” she said.
Despite her age, Doña Victoria said that she doesn’t receive a government pension and that she and her husband try to get by on his social security benefits alone, although their children sometimes give them 100 pesos (US $4).
She said that she and her husband barely go out for fear of being infected with Covid-19, which had sickened 367 people in Mexico as of Monday and killed four.
“They say that there are one or two cases here in Sonora [there are now five confirmed cases in the state] … and that it’s dangerous. As the Bible says, ‘Worse things are coming.’”
Herrera was working to stop a housing development.
Defending the natural world from private interests has once again proven to be a dangerous job in Mexico. Environmental activist Isaac Medardo Herrera Avilés was shot to death in his home in Juitepec, Morelos, on Monday night.
Herrera worked to defend the Los Venados (The Deer) nature reserve located within the municipality. His murder brought politicians, lawyers and social activists together online to call for an end to the violence in the state and to bring his killers to justice.
Herrera acted as legal representative for 13 Morelos communities that launched a legal battle to save the Chihuahuita spring from development in 2007.
Real estate developer Casas Ara wanted to construct housing near the spring, threatening the municipality’s only protected land. Herrera’s team petitioned then-governor Graco Ramírez to expropriate the land and return it to the control of the Juitepec municipal government.
Although he agreed to do so, Ramírez never followed through before the end of his term. Development at the site resumed, for which Herrera and other citizens filed a complaint with state authorities just weeks before his murder.
A Mexico City Metro worker dispenses hand sanitizer for passengers.
Mexico’s Covid-19 death toll has risen to five and there are 405 confirmed cases of the infectious disease in the country, health authorities announced on Tuesday night.
A 61-year-old woman with multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, and diabetes died of pneumonia in a Mexico City hospital on Monday evening, becoming the first female coronavirus fatality in Mexico and the fifth overall. She returned to Mexico from Spain on March 17 and developed coronavirus symptoms the next day.
The other four people to have died also had existing health problems such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity.
Health Ministry Director of Epidemiology José Luis Alomia told a press conference that 2% of the 405 people confirmed to have Covid-19 – an increase of 38 compared to Monday – are in serious condition. The vast majority are recovering at home while 10% are receiving treatment in the hospital, he said.
Mexico City has the highest number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 followed by Nuevo León, Jalisco, México state and Yucatán. Tlaxcala is the only state that has not yet reported a confirmed case.
Tuesday night’s coronavirus map.
Alomia also said that there are 1,219 suspected coronavirus cases and that 2,161 people had tested negative for the disease.
At the same press conference, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said that authorities expected a “long epidemic that could extend until September or October.”
The highest number of cases is expected in August, he added. Earlier on Tuesday, the official announced that Mexico had entered a phase of local transmission of Covid-19, which had sickened more than 370,000 people around the world and killed more than 16,200 as of Tuesday, according to the World Health Organization. Seven Mexicans confirmed to have Covid-19 have not traveled abroad recently and are not known to have had direct contact with someone who did.
López-Gatell expressed confidence that Mexico would be able to contain the coronavirus outbreak through social distancing and other measures such as the cancellation of events with more than 100 people and the closure of schools. As a result, authorities will be able to better “manage the risk” and ensure that the health system is not overwhelmed, he said.
Separately, Mexican Social Security Institute Director of Medical Benefits Víctor Hugo Borja Aburto said that 19 new hospitals that are set to open soon will have the capacity to provide treatment to coronavirus patients.
For his part, the head of the commission that manages Mexico’s national health institutes, Gustavo Reyes Terán, said that more than 600 new beds have been added to wards in Mexico City and México state hospitals that have been set up specifically to treat Covid-19 patients.
Empty chairs indicate a slowing of economic activity.
Meanwhile, President López Obrador announced on Tuesday that he had signed a decree ordering both the public and private sectors to allow workers aged 65 and over and other vulnerable people to stay at home. The quarantined workers will continue to receive their full salaries and benefits, according to the decree.
López Obrador also called on Mexicans to take even greater care than normal of their older family members, stating, “We already do it but we must now apply ourselves more.”
In addition, the president announced that his government will provide loans to 1 million small businesses to help them get through the economic downturn caused by the spread of Covid-19.
“We’re going to provide loans without interest or with very low rates to 1 million small businesses: fondas [small restaurants], taco restaurants, workshops – all those that will be affected by the economic crisis,” López Obrador said without providing details about the size of the loans.
The mayor of Mexico City and the governors of at least nine states, including Jalisco, México state, Quintana Roo, Puebla and Nuevo León, have already ordered the temporary closure of many non-essential businesses such as bars, nightclubs, casinos, movie theaters and gyms.
The economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico is predicted to be huge: the jobs of 18 million people could be at risk as the result of a coronavirus-fueled recession, according to a report by the bank BBVA México, and 42,000 businesses in Mexico City alone could close permanently due to a drop in consumer demand, said Eduardo Contreras, president of the Canacope business chamber.
The president announces a plan to confront the coronavirus pandemic.
Investment bank Credit Suisse and the Bank of America are both predicting that the Mexican economy will contract by about 4% in 2020, the peso has fallen to as low as 25 to the United States dollar, the stock market is faltering and Mexican crude prices have dropped to their lowest level since 2002.
Tourism, which contributes to around 9% of Mexico’s GDP, is one of the worst affected sectors with the number of people traveling both domestically and internationally plummeting as the coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen.
Hotel occupancy on Mexico’s Caribbean coast fell 76% in a week as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, while 28 hotels in Quintana Roo have decided to shut temporarily due to the drastic drop in demand, according to the Hotel Association of Cancún and Puerto Morelos.
Occupancy levels in the neighboring state of Yucatán have fallen to just 5%, the newspaper El Universal reported.
The retail, transportation and restaurant industries as well as the informal sector – which provides employment for millions of Mexicans – are also expected to take a significant economic hit.
In Mexico City, street vendors in the historic center told El Universal that their sales have decreased by at least 50%, while steep price increases for essential food items have been reported in the capital.
A kilogram of tortillas increased more than 40% from 12 pesos to 17, while the price of a kilo of eggs rose almost 20% from 38 pesos to 45, El Universal reported.
Canada’s ambassador to Mexico posted a video to Twitter on Monday evening in which he urged his compatriots to return to Canada “as soon as possible” in response to the threat and uncertainty from the global Covid-19 pandemic.
“Commercial flights are still operating, but the situation is changing very quickly,” Graeme Clark said. “The embassy and the consular agencies throughout the territory are working full-time to support you.”
He told Canadian citizens in Mexico to follow the Canadian Embassy on Twitter to receive the latest updates on the pandemic and government actions, and urged them to adhere to practices of social distancing.
“We are here for you. Take care,” he said. He added that all who return to Canada will be required to go into a 14-day quarantine.
Canada’s was not the first call by a foreign embassy in Mexico for its citizens to return to their countries of origin.
On March 17 the Swiss Embassy told its citizens in Mexico for both tourism and business to return home.
“The situation is getting worse on the American continent, so this embassy advises [Swiss citizens] to return to Switzerland while it’s still possible,” the embassy tweeted.
The French Embassy made a similar announcement to that country’s students in Mexico on March 20, saying that their “protection is our priority.”
“If the end of your stay or if your university/host organization is closed and your course/mission is interrupted, we recommend you return to France,” the embassy tweeted.
Mexican authorities have yet to put restrictions on international flights, but some airlines like Aeroméxico and Interjet are beginning to limit international service themselves.
