Voters went to the polls in Coahuila and Hidalgo on Sunday.
There are signs that the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), resoundingly defeated at elections in 2018, is rising from its deathbed.
But Mexico’s current ruling party believes that the once omnipotent political force – the PRI ruled Mexico uninterruptedly for 71 years last century – is up to its old tricks of vote buying and coercion.
According to preliminary results, the PRI – in power federally between 2012 and 2018 with former president Enrique Peña Nieto at its helm – won all 16 districts in elections in Coahuila on Sunday to renew the unicameral state Congress. It was also successful in at least 32 of 84 municipal elections in Hidalgo.
Alejandro Moreno, national president of the PRI, said the results in the two states are representative of people’s renewed confidence in the party, which was plagued by corruption scandals while Peña Nieto was in office.
“It is clear that the PRI is back and that in 2021 [when midterm federal elections will be held] … we will continue winning the confidence of citizens,” he said.
The PRI’s Moreno declares victory.
The PRI garnered just under 50% of the vote in Coahuila, more than twice the percentage of voters who cast their ballots for second-place Morena, the party founded by President López Obrador. In Hidalgo, Morena won control of just six municipalities, the newspaper El Universal reported Monday.
But the party’s national president disputed the preliminary results in a Twitter post Sunday.
“The National Executive Committee of Morena doesn’t recognize the so-called preliminary results. We’re still reviewing our records and the information that’s arriving at the electoral institutes. We’re in the running in the majority of districts in Coahuila and several municipalities in Hidalgo,” Alfonso Ramírez Cuéllar wrote.
He and several Morena candidates told a press conference Sunday that irregularities such as vote-buying and coercion – tactics for which the PRI has long been known – were factors in the elections in both states. Ramírez said that violence also marred the elections in the latter state.
The Morena national president said the PRI “doesn’t have the moral quality to speak of a victory, much less a legitimate victory” and would file complaints against the alleged irregularities.
The National Electoral Institute, which is responsible for running elections and counting votes, stressed that the results for both Coahuila and Hidalgo are preliminary, noting that definitive results will be published on Wednesday.
The Morena party’s Ramírez declares trickery.
While the early results in the two states, both of which are led by PRI governors, are encouraging for the “tricolor party,” it’s not clear that they will translate into success at federal elections next June at which the entire lower house of Congress will be renewed.
Just 10% of respondents to a recent poll said they planned to vote for the PRI next year compared to 39% who indicated that they would cast their ballots in favor of López Obrador’s Morena.
The conservative National Action Party, currently the second largest party in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, only garnered 11% support in the same poll while 31% of respondents said either they wouldn’t vote or hadn’t yet made up their mind.
After Covid-19 restrictions across Mexico indefinitely closed nonessential businesses, Oaxaca artist Doris Arellano Manzo made a decision: a canvas is a canvas — it could be stretched over a wooden frame or stretched over a pair of athletic shoes.
Like other artists worldwide who are succeeding at beating the pandemic’s economic challenges to their careers, Arellano is learning to adapt — to be less conventional and to think quite literally a bit smaller: she now paints her art on sneakers.
Arellano has been painting sneakers since July, when she and her daughter Frida, a communications and social media professional, realized that Arellano needed to reinvent herself and her art to adapt to the fact that museums and galleries would probably remain closed for the foreseeable future.
Since then, she has been creating artwork on her new, tinier form of canvas. Her latest collection of work, all painted on athletic footwear, is entitled Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead).
This latest collection features shoes with colorful abstract designs in bright cempasúchil orange, with lush floral wreaths and, of course, featuring the iconic, skeletal Catrina.
Arellano decided she needed to reinvent herself and her art to adapt to the fact that galleries would probably remain closed for the foreseeable future.
“Since I love to paint, I can paint for you on a large canvas just as well as I can on a small [one],” she recently told the newspaper Milenio. “As far as I’m concerned, while you have me here with my paints and paintbrushes, I’m thrilled.”
Each pair of shoes is unique, she said, “because it’s all done by hand, not by machine.” She describes her style as “traditionalist contemporary,” and says she is drawn to evoking the rites and customs of Oaxacan traditional culture.
When she began her first foray into sneaker painting in July, at Frida’s suggestion, her sneaker art was Guelaguetza-themed. The Guelaguetza is a traditional Oaxaca cultural festival that had to be canceled this year due to the pandemic.
She said both sneaker collections are homage to the Oaxaca rites and traditions that couldn’t take place in 2020.
In some ways, she said, the enforced isolation of the pandemic has been a huge challenge for artists like herself, but in other ways, it’s actually been familiar.
“The work of an artist is a bit enclosed,” she admitted. “We go out when there are exhibits, when we have to go introduce ourselves in public or do interviews.”
Still, she said, the pandemic caught the art community flatfooted.
“Artists don’t have a way to show their work during the pandemic,” she said. “It’s all been halted, and we have to go back and look for new formats for the public to see what we are doing.”
The president's brother seeks a fine and up to 12 years in jail for Carlos Loret de Mola.
The brother of President López Obrador has filed a complaint against a journalist who presented two videos in which he is seen receiving large amounts of cash in 2015.
Journalist Carlos Loret de Mola said that Pío López Obrador filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) on October 2 in which he describes himself as a victim and lodges a request for the person who disseminated the videos to be fined and jailed for up to 12 years.
Loret de Mola claims that the footage serves as evidence of corruption but President López Obrador has denied the accusation, saying the day after the videos came to light that the payments his brother received were “contributions” from ordinary people who support Morena, the political party he founded.
In an opinion column published in The Washington Post on Sunday, Loret de Mola wrote that although the conversations between Pío López Obrador and León in the two videos “don’t establish it explicitly, it’s suspected that the money arrived from then Chiapas governor –now [federal] senator – Manuel Velasco, with whom David León has been an extremely close operator.”
Pío and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
In the complaint he filed with the FGR, Pío López Obrador “sought to attack” him, the journalist wrote.
“[He] speaks of the dissemination of his videos as ‘acts presumably constituting crimes committed against him and his family,’” Loret de Mola wrote.
“He asks to be recognized as an assistant of the Attorney General’s Office and for an investigation into the matter to be opened.”
Loret de Mola said that Pío López Obrador argued in his complaint that his right to privacy was violated by the publication of the videos, which were apparently filmed by León.
“All reserved or secret information is protected by our legal system,” the president’s brother said, according to Loret de Mola.
“The various conversations I held with David León Romero were of a reserved nature and are therefore protected by the human right to privacy. … There are certain provisions of law for that reason. Every human has [the right to] privacy and that must be respected. Based on the aforementioned, the dissemination of the conversations is completely illegal.”
AMLO, as the president is widely known, has insulted his critics on a daily basis at his morning news conferences, pressured owners of news outlets and used public funds to buy positive coverage, the journalist charged.
Loret de Mola also accused the federal government, including the supposedly autonomous Attorney General’s Office, of providing “shelter” to Pío López Obrador and encouraging him to make the complaint against him.
The “illegal acts” shown in the videos are of “public interest” and their publication has “journalistic value,” he wrote before concluding that he will fight the claims against him.
One supporter of the journalist is National Action Party Senator Lilly Téllez.
“My support for and solidarity with Carlos Loret in the face of abuse of power of the [federal government] regime,” she wrote on Twitter.
“That’s how Venezuela began,” Téllez added, apparently referring to the Venezuelan government’s jailing of critics and political opponents.
A year after the massive escape of 51 convicts in Culiacan, Sinaloa, during the city’s infamous “Jueves Negro” (Black Thursday) drug cartel attacks, authorities acknowledge that they have recaptured only six of the men who took advantage of the chaos to break out of the city’s Aguaruto penitentiary.
Of the six escapees that have been recaptured, four were found just three days later in the city, authorities said. A fifth was captured last December in Mazatlán, about three hours from Culiacán, and the sixth was arrested October 11 in Culiacán after attempting to rob a school.
“Black Thursday” refers to a chaotic and violent event in the state capital on October 17 following the authorities’ capture of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s son, Ovidio, in order to execute a U.S. warrant for his extradition.
Within a few hours, Guzmán’s detention in Culiacán unleashed a day of retaliatory chaos in the city by armed civilians believed to be part of the Sinaloa Cartel. They fired on authorities who had Guzmán in custody and then began a campaign of shootings, arson, and armed road blockades in the city.
At least eight people died and 16 were injured before authorities released Guzmán from custody on orders by President López Obrador, who told the country two days later that he was trying to prevent as many as 200 people from being killed by gangsters.
The 51 convicts who escaped the penitentiary in the chaos — which temporarily closed schools, businesses, and public transportation — were serving sentences for crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, and murder.
How far does corruption extend within the armed forces? An organization opposed to the militarization of security forces wants to know.
In light of the arrest of former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos in the United States last week on drug trafficking charges, a non-governmental organization has urged the federal government to carry out an investigation into the armed forces.
The #SeguridadSinGuerra (Security without War) collective called on the federal Attorney General’s Office to conduct a probe into Cienfuegos’ conduct while he was chief of the army between 2012 and 2018 as well as “networks of corruption” within the military.
The NGO said in a statement that the investigation shouldn’t be limited to the accusations made by the United States government, recommending that it also include an examination of “the multiple human rights violations committed by members of the armed forces.”
The army and the navy have both been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings, including during the administration of President López Obrador.
Seguridad Sin Guerra (SSG) said that military personnel must not be allowed to participate in an investigation into the armed forces even if they are retired or on leave.
The arrest on drug charges of former army chief Cienfuegos has triggered questions about corruption within the military.
The collective also called on the federal government to put an end to the militarization of public security in Mexico, noting that December will mark the 14th anniversary of the armed forces carrying out tasks that “don’t correspond to them.”
Former president Felipe Calderón deployed the military to combat Mexico’s notorious drug cartels shortly after he took office in December 2006. More than 200,000 people were killed in the subsequent 12 years as Calderón’s successor, Enrique Peña Nieto, continued the so-called “war on drugs” strategy.
It said the military has been assigned most of the roles without “serious civil controls” and clear rules of transparency and accountability being implemented. The military has, however, received “vast budget resources,” the collective said.
President López Obrador, who signed a decree in May that ensures that the military will continue to carry out public security tasks until the final year of his six-year term, has repeatedly justified his government’s use of the army for such tasks because it’s an “institution in which there is no corruption,” SSG said.
However, the arrest of Cienfuegos is a clear sign that “corruption is a serious problem in the Mexican army,” the collective said.
It said that the simple fact that there is an investigation against General Cienfuegos “is the most resounding call to attention about the irresponsibility of continuing with the militarization of government functions.”
The most responsible thing to do, SSG added, “would be to respect the Constitution and put a pause on the militarization process” until an investigation determines the full extent of corruption within the armed forces.
Later in its statement, the collective noted that the Constitution restricts the military in times of peace to tasks of a military, rather than public security, nature.
It also called for an end to “opaque economic empowerment” of the armed forces, including the awarding of direct contracts to the military despite its “history of irregularities” as a contractor.
SSG concluded that peace cannot be restored while “corruption, impunity and militarization continue to eat away at our institutions.”
There were 23,471 homicides during the period, a 1.5% increase compared to the same period of 2019, which was the most violent year on record in Mexico.
The Spanish company Toompak was among the entertainers at the annual festival.
With a virtual audience of at least two million, organizers are declaring this year’s International Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato city a success despite Covid-19 restrictions forcing them to hold much of the festival virtually.
In fact, the new hybrid format — a mix of live, in-person activities and performances broadcast on television, radio, and online — was such a success that festival director Mariana Aymerich said it will be repeated in 2021 and beyond, whether or not there are pandemic restrictions next year.
“We hope to experience a festival like the one we know, and we are working toward that, but we will continue next year with the virtual format because it permits us to connect with a greater number of people all over the world,” she said during a press conference Sunday that was also broadcast virtually.
“What is a fact is that the virtual format is here to stay and will be a more frequent part of the International Cervantino Festival each year,” she added.
The fine arts festival, in its 48th year, took place Wednesday through Sunday and involved 822 artists and performers, nearly half of them from at least 13 countries other than Mexico. Organizers say they saw 300,000 visits to the festival’s internet homepage, which provided links to the virtual events.
Aymerich said the festival put on 41 live showings and 23 taped events that were later broadcast on 66 radio stations, 58 public television stations, and 87 public and private online outlets. The festival itself broadcast 10 live transmissions on online platforms and hosted in-person art exhibits and academic workshops.
Events shown on the festival’s YouTube channel had attracted 42,500 views worldwide by Sunday, Aymerich reported.
The event is usually a huge boon for Guanajuato’s tourism industry. This year, Aymerich acknowledged that the new format meant a lot less clientele for the city’s tourism-based businesses.
“The numbers will not be exactly as many as in previous years because digital consumption [of events] has different metrics, and the festival was transmitted on various [media] platforms,” she said.
Nevertheless, Guanajuato Mayor Alejandro Navarro said hotels were full on the weekend, although he acknowledged that due to state’s current yellow status on the national coronavirus stoplight system, the city’s hotels are currently allowed to function only at 30% capacity.
But at Sunday’s press conference, he announced publicly that the city will continue to support the festival financially in years to come.
Corn from the milpa in Buctzotz, Yucatán. Maya communities see the milpa as central to their lives. Haizel de la Cruz, Múuch’ Xíinbal
“My family and I have lived here for five generations. By making us move, by displacing us … [they] are going to destroy our traditions and our way of life.”
The words are those of Guadalupe Cáceres, a member of the Colectivo Tres Barrios, a group formed to protect the interests of 293 families facing displacement in three neighborhoods in the city of Campeche. Some 2,000 people are being forced to move to make way for President López Obrador’s ambitious Maya Train project.
The government insists that the 165-billion-peso project, funded through public money and private investment, will promote economic and sustainable development in one of Mexico’s poorest regions.
But many communities contend that the project will have a disastrous impact on their culture, livelihoods and land. They say it is also a violation of their rights.
Valiana Aguilar, a member of Assembly of Defenders of the Mayan Territory Múuch’ Xíinbal, which represents Maya communities across the Yucatán Peninsula, told Mexico News Daily that the government is imposing the project upon them.
The old railway line in Izamal, Yucatán, where line 3 of the Maya Train is supposed to run. Haizel de la Cruz, Múuch’ Xíinbal
“The government says that development will improve the quality of life for the communities and they are trying to determine what kind of life we should have. Well, [the train] is a threat to our way of life. Why? Because no one can tell us what a good life is, or what it should be, or what we should aspire to be as people.”
For the Maya communities represented by Múuch’ Xíinbal, their traditional agricultural system – the milpa – is central to their lives. “It is not for nothing that we say we are the women and men of the corn. It is our daily food, but it is not only food; it involves our entire coexistence, it is how we see the world, it is how we feel it,” explained Aguilar.
However, this traditional practice is being impacted by megaprojects – such as industrial pork farms, soy plantations, and solar parks – which are fueling community division, deforestation and land dispossession.
Aguilar said that land grabs have increased in recent years and that the “Maya Train is reinforcing the systematic dispossession of land.”
Maya communities own and manage ejidos, communally-held land traditionally used for the milpa. According to Mexico’s Agrarian Law, ejidos can be sold if they are converted into private property through a “separation process,” requiring consent from all landowners. Nonetheless, communities claim that they are often pressured, manipulated, or deceived into selling their land.
In July, the community of Xcalakdzonot in Yucatán state, located 50 kilometers from one of the proposed train stations, alleges that despite the Covid-19 restrictions, they were visited by a man claiming to represent the international bakery firm Bimbo and two textiles companies. The town’s inhabitants claim that the man attempted to buy 2,078 hectares of ejido land by convincing people to sell for as little as US $0.50 per square meter.
Maya farmers in the milpa collecting the squash harvest. Haizel de la Cruz, Múuch’ Xíinbal
The Agrarian Law also allows the government to expropriate ejido land for public projects, such as train lines, with landowners (ejidatarios) compensated for their loss. However, an investigation by an anti-corruption organization revealed that communities that had their ejidos appropriated in the 1970s for construction of the highway from Cancún to the Belize border are yet to receive compensation.
In Bacalar, Alika Santiago, a member of a Maya women’s collective representing local communities, is also worried that the train will increase land appropriation.
“For us, the Maya Train is a territorial reordering that does not consider the indigenous people. It will strip us of our land,” she said.
The National Tourism Development Fund (Fonatur) wants to incorporate 1,000 hectares of ejido land in Bacalar as part of an urban real estate project that will accompany the train – this in addition to the six hectares it needs for the construction of a station.
The ejidatarios will not sell until certain conditions are met. They are demanding payment for 354 hectares of ejido land, which the government appropriated in 1972. Mostly located on the lakeshore, the land was then acquired by individuals who have built hotels, houses and other infrastructure projects.
Santiago told Mexico News Daily that although some people are willing to sell, many are resisting and believe that the train will not benefit their communities.
Maya women at the annual Feria de las Cebollitas (Little Onion Fair) in Ixil, Yucatán. Haizel de la Cruz, Múuch’ Xíinbal
“It is clear to us that the project will not benefit us because these [development] initiatives have never benefited us. [These project] have stripped us of our land, our territory and they have deprived us of our plants, biodiversity, and the forest – the forest that gives us life.”
For Santiago and Aguilar, and the communities they represent, the train is also a violation of indigenous rights because a public consultation was carried out improperly.
The referendum saw 92% of people vote in favor of the project but just 2% of the 3.53 million registered voters in the 84 municipalities voted.
Aguilar explained that instead of informing communities how the project could impact them, government representatives spoke only of its benefits.
“The consultation was a total farce. It was not binding at all. It was a matter of promoting the train. They did not consult all the communities and there was no information on the impacts.”
Communities in Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Campeche and Chiapas have since filed lawsuits in the federal courts, claiming that the project is a violation of multiple human rights recognized in Mexico’s Constitution and international treaties.
While some of these legal claims are still pending, many others have been rejected.
In April, Colectivo Tres Barrios filed an injunction to stop their eviction, but the court rejected the claim. Now it is waiting for a response to an appeal submitted in August. Still, Cáceres said at a press conference that they continue to live in “uncertainty, fear and anxiety.”
Courts in Yucatán have also rejected four lawsuits filed by Múuch’ Xíinbal.
“This means that the courts and the judges are on the side of the government. They are on the side of the train. It is clear to us, but that does not mean that we will stop our struggle,” Aguilar said.
Turning to international mechanisms, the Indigenous Governing Council, a national organization that represents the interests of indigenous peoples, filed a complaint in August with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for violating indigenous peoples’ rights with five megaprojects, including the Maya Train. The commission’s decision is currently pending.
The president waves the starter's flag at inauguration of construction of the Maya Train in June.
In these times of quarantine, I watched Soylent Green (1973) again. It was one of the science fiction films that troubled me most at the time.
It depicts a futuristic society that, in the middle of an unprecedented environmental crisis, dehumanizes itself: a fertile breeding ground for despair, authoritarianism, and all manner of social and economic calamity. The story takes place in New York City in 2022, a metropolis of 40 million souls.
Overpopulation, pollution, soaring temperatures, and intolerable overcrowding combine to cloister a small elite, who retain tight economic and political control — and that also has the luxury of eating fresh meat and vegetables and drinking clean water every day.
The rest of the population, the countless faceless proletariat, can afford only government-issued green and red “cookies” to survive upon. Those who wish to escape this chaos willingly go “Home,” to be killed painlessly while dreaming awake — a sort of laboratory, but one in which you can die peacefully, hallucinating green forests and birds, listening to wondrous music while immersed in colors that quiet one’s soul.
A singular moment and ephemeral passage, spiced with sensational images of oceans, forests, translucent streams, and wildlife — all that no longer exists since the environmental hecatomb. At the end of the film, we understand that the corpses of those dreamers are the raw material of which the nutritious cookies that feed the still living are made.
This film comes to mind now as we approach the year 2022. And it makes me think about how the governments of the three most populous nations in the Americas see the environment. Or better put, how they don’t see it. The U.S., Mexico and Brazil are home to almost 690 million people and a vast biological and cultural diversity legacy. Can we fight together as one, for a just and sustainable future for the generations to come?
In less than four years in the United States, President Donald Trump has dismantled most of the public policies and institutional foundations needed to curb global warming and protect the environment. Regulations for carbon dioxide emissions, toxic chemicals, and air and water pollution have been rolled back.
He has stopped payments to the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations program to assist developing countries in reducing carbon emissions, and he is also withdrawing the U.S. from the pivotal Paris Climate Agreement. President Trump has undermined regulations on protected areas, wetlands, fisheries, and protection of endangered species of marine mammals, sea turtles, and migratory birds, to mention just a few.
Mr. Trump has turned the Environmental Protection Agency into an environmental executioner, one with the aim of erasing everything related to the environmental legacy of former president Barack Obama.
The environmental situation in Brazil isn’t much better. In less than two years, President Jair Bolsonaro has become the main instigator of the fires that in 2019 and 2020 devastated the Amazon. In 2019, Mr. Bolsonaro claimed the Amazon was “his.” Not to leave any doubt how serious he was, he devoted himself with fervor to weakening environmental regulations, encouraging farmers and loggers to initiate fires, and promoting mining on ancestral indigenous lands.
He continues reviling indigenous peoples who oppose destruction of the Amazon and cynically blames environmental organizations for starting the fires in a sick attempt at twisted logic. Just two months ago, 29 organizations, including financial institutions from the U.S., the United Kingdom, Norway, and Japan managing trillions of dollars in assets, warned Brazil that further escalation would seriously impact their investment appetite in the region.
Nevertheless, just a week ago, the country’s own national institute for space research announced that they detected more than 29,000 fires in Brazil’s Amazon region in August 2020, the second highest number in a decade and only slightly fewer than last year’s count of 30,900 fires. Yet Mr. Bolsonaro doesn’t seem to care about the Amazon, or the environment, or Brazilians.
And between the U.S. and Brazil there lies a distant neighbor — Mexico. My country. Not much can be said in favor of the environment after two years of President López Obrador’s administration. It doesn’t seem to be a priority for him either, though I’d love to be proven wrong.
Promises to avoid major environmental damage that gargantuan government development projects would trigger, like the so-called Maya Train, so far haven’t convinced environmentalists and independent scientists. President López Obrador has already been through three environment ministers in a row, and environmental agencies continue to be dismantled. Without the necessary budget and staff to maintain them, protected areas rapidly languish. And the relationship with environmentalists is as polarized as ever.
Mexico still has an option, though, to avoid going down the same destructive paths of the U.S. and Brazil. Despite ideological differences, environmentalists are not against the López Obrador administration; but they have learned to fight for Mexico as hard as he does.
López Obrador can build bridges and call them to a national dialogue, demonstrating that our nation’s environment and natural resources are indeed a priority for his government. There are some respected environmentalists in his cabinet who could trigger such a national dialogue: Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard, Deputy Minister for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Martha Delgado and Education Minister Esteban Moctezuma are among them, as is Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s mayor.
It is not too late. Such an inclusive dialogue could capture and multiply the efforts of many to preserve our most precious common good: a thriving natural environment, one of the richest on Earth.
The writer is a former senior officer of the United Nations Environment Program and former director-general of the World Wildlife Fund. This piece originally appearedin El Universal.
For travelers wanting to cross the Mexico–United States border by vehicle or on foot, the wait for an open border continues: the two nations have agreed to keep their land borders closed for another month, until November 21.
“After reviewing the development of the spread of Covid-19, Mexico proposed to the United States the one-month extension [allowing] only essential land crossings at its common border,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on its Twitter account Friday.
The extended land-crossing ban expires November 21 but it has been extended every month since it was first implemented in March.
Movement between the two countries — except for reasons of commerce and essential travel — was banned by mutual agreement by both governments on March 21 in order to halt the spread of Covid-19.
Mexicans with legal permission to work in the U.S. will continue to be allowed entry, and air travel between Mexico and the U.S. will still be allowed.
Few masks are evident among these fans at a ball game in Sinaloa.
New coronavirus cases increased in eight states in early October, official data shows, but Covid-19 deaths are on the wane across the country.
Ruy López Ridaura, director of the National Center for Disease Prevention and Control Programs (Cenaprece), presented data at the Health Ministry’s coronavirus press briefing on Sunday that showed that Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Querétaro and Zacatecas recorded a spike in new case numbers in epidemiological week 41, which ran from October 4 to 10.
Durango saw the biggest increase among those eight states, with new case numbers rising 46% compared to epidemiological week 40.
The next biggest increases were in Chihuahua, Querétaro and Zacatecas, where new case numbers increased by 37%, 35% and 23%, respectively.
Aguascalientes, Nuevo León, Coahuila and Hidalgo recorded increases of 20%, 13%, 12% and 5%, respectively.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
The risk of coronavirus infection in all eight states where new cases increased between October 4 and 10 is orange light “high,” according to the federal government’s stoplight system.
Nationally, new case numbers declined 1% in epidemiological week 41 compared to the week before.
However, López said that it is “very probable” that new case numbers actually increased in week 41 because cases from that week are still being registered by health authorities.
An increase in new case numbers between October 4 and 10 would bring to an end a decline that was maintained for several weeks from mid-August.
With regard to Covid-19 deaths, numbers declined in all 32 states in week 41 for a national reduction of 51% compared to the previous week.
Campeche and Chiapas didn’t record a single death between October 4 and 10, according to data presented by López.
Earlier in the press briefing, the Cenaprece chief announced that Mexico’a accumulated tally of confirmed cases had increased to 851,227 and that the official Covid-19 death toll had risen to 86,167.
The Health Ministry registered 4,119 new cases and 108 additional fatalities on Sunday. It estimates that there are currently 44,083 active cases across Mexico.
Mexico City continues to lead the country for accumulated cases and Covid-19 deaths, with 146,952 of the former and 14,379 0f the latter.
México state, which includes numerous municipalities in the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City, ranks second in both categories. It has recorded more than 91,000 confirmed cases and 10,218 Covid-19 deaths.
Nuevo León and Guanajuato rank third and fourth respectively for accumulated case numbers, each state having recorded more than 40,000.
Veracruz has the third highest official death toll among Mexico’s 32 states, with 4,638 fatalities as of Sunday. Puebla and Baja California rank fourth and fifth for total deaths, with 4,540 and 3,710, respectively.
Figures for both coronavirus cases and Covid-19 deaths are widely believed to be significant undercounts due to a lack of testing.
Fewer than 17,000 people per 1 million inhabitants have been tested in Mexico. By comparison, about 379,000 people per million have been tested in the United States and the rates in each of Canada, France and Chile are above 200,000 per million residents.
Despite its low testing rate, Mexico ranks 10th in the world for cases and fourth for Covid-19 deaths behind only the United States, Brazil and India.
