Capital to offer interest-free loans to small businesses shut down by Covid

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December 23, 2020

The 10,000-peso loans to small businesses will be repayable over two years.

The Mexico City government has announced an 830-million-peso (US $41.3 million) economic support package for people affected by the capital’s red light coronavirus risk designation and the three-week shutdown of nonessential businesses.

Authorities announced last Friday that Mexico City was switching to the maximum risk level due a recent increase in coronavirus case numbers and hospitalizations. Nonessential businesses must remain closed until January 11.

Administration and Finance Minister Luz Elena González announced on Tuesday four different measures to support small businesses, workers and families affected by the economic shutdown.

The government will offer 50,000 interest-free loans of 10,000 pesos (just under US $500) each to small businesses, she said. They will have 24 months to repay them, and their first repayments are not due until four months after they receive the money.

The government has set aside 500 million pesos for the program.

The second measure announced by González is the provision of 2,200-peso (US $110) lump sum payments to 100,000 formal and informal sector restaurant workers. Restaurants are limited to take out and delivery service during the shutdown, meaning that many employees have likely been laid off.

The workers’ assistance package is worth 220 million pesos.

Thirdly, the government will provide payments to families with children enrolled in public schools. The payments, designed to help parents cover school expenses such as the purchase of uniforms and supplies, range from 710 to 830 pesos per student.

Families with a child enrolled at a school for students with disabilities will receive a 900-peso payment.

“One family with two children, for example, will be receiving between 1,400 and 1,800 pesos … as support for these times we are going through,” González said.

A total of 89 million pesos has been allocated to the program, which is expected to benefit the families of about 1.25 million children.

The fourth and final measure is the cancelation of the payment of payroll tax in January for nonessential businesses located in Mexico City’s historic center. The scheme is expected to save businesses a combined 20.5 million pesos.

González stressed that the four measures are in addition to economic support that federal and city authorities are already providing.

“These are extraordinary [measures],” she said.

Some business groups said the assistance is insufficient to counteract the impact of the three-week closure.

The Mexico City branch of the Mexican Employers Federation (Coparmex) said an economic package of some 3.2 billion pesos – almost four times the size of the one announced – is needed to help businesses and workers survive the shutdown.

“Coparmex Mexico City urges the city government to take a serious look at its budget estimates and propose a real program … to protect jobs and companies,” said president Armando Zúñiga.

México ¿Cómo Vamos? director Sofía Ramírez welcomed the support packages.

He said that canceling payroll tax in January was a good idea but questioned why the scheme was limited to the capital’s downtown area.

“[It’s] completely discriminatory for the remainder of formal companies that have suffered the effects of the pandemic,” Zúñiga said.

He and other business group leaders who spoke with the newspaper El Financiero said that businesses need more support to be able to pay workers’ salaries. They also said they should be given extensions to pay expenses such as electricity and rent.

Gerardo Cleto López Becerra of the small business association ConComercioPequeño said the economic package is insufficient and charged that the Mexico City government has underestimated the size of the problem businesses are facing.

He said that 10,000-peso loans would do little to help businesses that have seen their sales fall by 80% this year and could even harm them.

“Businesses are in debt, … it’s not possible that [they’re] offering more debt to indebted businesses,” López said.

The package did find some supporters, among whom were a think tank chief and the president of the National Chamber for Industrial Transformation (Canacinta).

“You have to recognize that they’re doing what we’ve seen has worked in other places – precisely this package of loans to micro and small businesses and support for one of the worst hit sectors, … restaurants,” said México ¿Cómo Vamos? director Sofía Ramírez.

She also said that the additional support for families with school-age children is welcome.

“Any additional income will do people a lot of good,” Ramírez said, noting that the governments of other states haven’t provided additional support for students, most of whom have studied remotely for virtually the entire year.

Canacintra president Enoch Castellanos said that Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and her government have demonstrated empathy with businesses and workers in announcing measures to help them survive the red light restrictions. He called on the federal government to emulate what the authorities in the capital are doing.

President López Obrador and his administration have been heavily criticized by the private sector for not providing enough support for businesses and workers amid the sharp coronavirus-induced economic downturn.

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

3 civil servants suspended after demanding bribe for payment of flood aid

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Michelle Aguilar

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December 23, 2020

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Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by flooding in Tabasco last month.

Three civil servants in Tabasco have been suspended after a video came to light showing them not-too-subtly demanding a bribe from a flood victim in exchange for processing her request for aid.

The federal government’s Welfare Ministry said it had identified and suspended three of the employees involved after it learned of the video via social media. Spokesperson Fernando Vázquez said the agency was investigating the incident and emphasized that 90% of the 200,000 people in Tabasco documented as affected by flooding have received recovery aid “in an honest and direct manner.”

The video shows a Ministry of Welfare employee in Teapa soliciting the bribe while other employees look on. In the video, the official says the victim can receive aid, but that she also had to support “the [civil] servants.”

The victim had approached the agency Monday to find out why the 10,000 pesos she had been promised was not delivered. She told local media that she had recorded the conversation with her phone after hearing from other residents who had received aid that one had to negotiate with the employees at the office to receive payment. Her mother surreptitiously recorded the video, she said.

The victim said she was first told that she had not been paid because the agency had received reports that no one lived in her community, despite the victim recognizing one of the employees in the office as her neighbor.

The civil servant then told the victim she could receive the aid promised but that she needed to pay 5,000 pesos, half the amount the woman was slated to receive.

“Yes, you can receive aid, but we also want you to help us,” the woman says on the video, “so that the civil servants receive the same support.”

After revealing that she had recorded the conversation, she was told that that no one had agreed to being recorded. Ultimately, her aid application was rejected on the grounds that she was already receiving aid from another program, a claim she refuted.

Source: Telereportaje (sp)

US tourists are swarming to Quintana Roo; their numbers are up 23% over last year

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MND Staff

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December 23, 2020

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United States tourists, locked out of European countries and other popular tourism destinations around the world due to the raging coronavirus pandemic at home, are flocking to the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo.

Despite the coronavirus situation and a United States government warning against all travel to Mexico, the number of American visitors to Quintana Roo, where popular destinations such as Cancún, Playa del Carmen and Tulum are located, has increased 23% this year compared to 2019, according to statistics cited by The Washington Post.

The Post also reported that about 100 flights from the United States are currently arriving in Quintana Roo per day. The state’s most popular and famous destination, Cancún, is expected to be busy over the Christmas-New Year vacation period if not quite as bustling as in recent years.

The authorities in Quintana Roo, whose economy is heavily dependent on tourism revenue, have taken a calculated risk in encouraging tourists from the United States and further afield to vacation along the state’s Caribbean coastline. They even declared tourism an essential service to ensure that the sector can continue to operate.

There is little doubt that the risk of the virus spreading increases with the arrival of each planeload of U.S. tourists – some of whom see Mexico as an escape from the pandemic problems at home and are reluctant mask-wearers – but the money they bring to an economy that has been battered in 2020 is much needed.

Tourism Minister Vanegas. — Tourism Minister Vanegas: ‘We always prioritize public health.’

More than 100,000 tourism sector jobs were lost in Quintana Roo in the first few months of the pandemic, causing unemployment to skyrocket in the state’s tourism hotspots. According to the municipal government of Tulum, half of the town’s working age adults were unemployed in May.

“We need to find a way to create jobs. Otherwise, the situation will continue getting worse,” said Quintana Roo Tourism Minister Marisol Vanegas. “But we always prioritize public health.”

But how well the authorities have managed the health risks posed by an influx of tourists has been called into question recently as news came to light about a multi-day festival held in Tulum last month that has been described as a coronavirus superspreading event.

Despite the inherent risk of the virus spreading at large gatherings, the Tulum government allowed the Art With Me festival to go ahead and host up to 300 people at its various events and parties. Masks were conspicuous by their absence at many events and video footage shows revelers dancing and mingling in close quarters with little concern over the virus.

Unsurprisingly, numerous attendees subsequently tested positive for Covid-19 both in Mexico and at home in the United States. The organizers issued an apology last week and said they regretted “not canceling the event entirely.”

One Art With Me attendee who traveled to Tulum from New York told the Post that “it felt like Covid was over” while she was out of the United States.

“The borders are open. The world is back to normal. Let’s just have fun,” said 31-year-old public relations executive Alexandra Karpova. “It felt like Burning Man on the beach. There was just an amazing energy. People were just so thirsty to be together. It was like, ‘We’re free again.’ ”

Maria Prusakova, a founder of a public relations firm who traveled to Tulum from San Francisco in July, said “there are parties almost every night” in the coastal town known for its bohemian and hipster vibe.

She told the Post that parties started at private villas after restaurants closed at 11:00 p.m. and no one wore masks. Prusakova and 12 of her friends all got sick and tested positive for Covid-19. The 30-year-old tested positive back home in San Francisco, meaning that she exposed other people to potential infection during her return trip.

Her story is unlikely to be unusual. For months amid the pandemic “wealthy Americans held private parties in villas and hotels along the [Riviera Maya] coast,” the Post reported.

Prusakova’s experience hasn’t dissuaded her from traveling again: she’s returning to the resort town for New Year’s celebrations.

But parties might not be as prevalent as they were earlier in the year.

Quintana Roo authorities are now saying that they won’t allow large parties to go ahead, and officials are perusing social media to look for any mention of events that people might seek to hold or attend clandestinely.

Yet “event organizers are quietly telling tourists they will find a way to host parties,” the Post said.

If tourists and locals in Quintana Roo find ways to gather in large numbers and let their hair down over the Christmas-New Year period, it is likely that hospitals in destinations such as Tulum will once again be inundated with people seeking Covid-19 tests and treatment.

“A big part of this tourism is young people, used to partying, used to dancing. Many of them, when they get sick, are asymptomatic, but they’ve interacted with locals who might not be,” said Tulum Hospital director Marco Rodriguez.

“People come here because they want to go to the biggest and best parties in Mexico, but the people hosting these events need to comply with the law.”

Non-compliance will inevitably mean more coronavirus cases and more Covid-19 deaths in Quintana Roo, where official statistics show that more than 15,000 people have already been infected and almost 2,000 have lost their lives to the disease.

As is the case across the country, those figures are likely significant undercounts due to Mexico’s dismally low testing rate.

Mexico News Daily

Mexico won’t restrict flights from UK in light of new virus strain

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MND Staff

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December 22, 2020

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The federal government won’t restrict flights from the United Kingdom in light of the new, more contagious coronavirus strain circulating in that country, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.

“The World Health Organization explicitly advises against shutting down flights from the United Kingdom because there is no evidence that this [strain] represents an additional threat,” he told reporters at President López Obrador’s morning press conference.

“… Stopping flights wouldn’t make a specific contribution to reducing the risk,” López-Gatell said.

The deputy minister said that the new virus strain, which U.K. authorities say could be up to 70% more transmissible than the original one, has possibly already spread widely around the world.

He acknowledged that there is evidence that the new strain is more contagious but said there is no proof that it causes a more serious Covid-19 illness, is resistant to vaccines or is not detected by Covid-19 tests.

Unlike many countries around the world, Mexico has not restricted flights from any foreign nation during the coronavirus pandemic. Neither foreign travelers nor Mexicans returning home are required to quarantine upon arrival in the country.

In contrast to Mexico, several countries in the region have decided to suspend flights from the U.K. They include Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Canada and Peru.

The new strain was identified in the U.K. in September but authorities didn’t disclose that knowledge until December 14.

Meanwhile, the French embassy in Mexico has advised French citizens not to travel here due to the deteriorating coronavirus situation. (More new cases have been reported in December than any other month.)

The embassy acknowledged in a statement that there are no restrictions on French citizens entering Mexico but explained that the country’s coronavirus situation has worsened. The embassy “energetically advises against traveling to Mexico from France,” the statement said.

“The epidemic [in Mexico] has spread at a high speed for several weeks,” said Ambassador Jean-Pierre Asvazadourian.

“Many states of the country are at the maximum alert [level] and the hospital occupancy rate is concerning,” he said.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Mexico, saying that there is a “very high level of Covid-19 in Mexico.”

But United States Ambassador Christopher Landau said subsequently that traveling in Mexico is safe during the coronavirus pandemic if one follows sanitary protocols established by the destination where one travels.

Mexico’s accumulated case tally currently stands at 1.32 million while the official Covid-19 death toll is 118,598.

Source: Infobae (sp), Milenio (sp)

Authorities in Morelos warn lockdown imminent if measures not followed

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MND Staff

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December 22, 2020

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Many Christmas shoppers were out on the weekend.

Authorities in Morelos have warned that red light restrictions will be enforced if citizens’ compliance with current coronavirus rules doesn’t improve by Wednesday.

Health Minister Marco Antonio Cantú Cuevas said Monday that Morelos will return to lockdown restrictions in 48 hours if people don’t comply with social distancing recommendations and continue to attend parties and gatherings with family and friends.

He added that red light restrictions could be implemented if there is not a significant reduction in citizens’ mobility generally.

“We want to make a call to the public and [issue] a warning due to the situation the state finds itself it. While there are [hospital] beds [now], that could change at any time,” Cantú said.

If people’s behavior doesn’t change by Wednesday, “we’ll inevitably return to the red stoplight” risk level, he said.

State Civil Protection chief Enrique Clement Gallardo said that patrols to ensure compliance with coronavirus rules will be increased in light of a recent increase in the number of violations reported.

Morelos, which borders coronavirus epicenter Mexico City, is one of just five states that have recorded fewer than 10,000 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. But its proximity to the capital, which has recorded almost 300,000 cases, places it at considerable risk of a large outbreak.

Cantú said that some bars, hotels and restaurants have increased the risk of the coronavirus situation worsening in Morelos – currently an orange light “high” risk state, according to the federal stoplight system – because they have failed to comply with health protocols and respect maximum capacity limits, currently set at 50%.

The health minister also said that people defied coronavirus rules to attend parties and gatherings las weekend, adding that commercial centers were full with Christmas shoppers.

“We were witnesses to a lot of irregularities over the past two days that don’t correspond to the emergency situation,” Cantú said.

“If we don’t pay attention [to the coronavirus rules], there will be no way for us to help you,” he said, referring to the possibility that hospitals will be overwhelmed and some people sick with the virus won’t be able to find a bed.

Federal data shows that 42% of general care hospital beds set aside for coronavirus patients in Morelos are currently occupied while 24% of those with ventilators are in use. The state has recorded 1,574 Covid-19 deaths, according to state data.

Source: Milenio (sp)

For second year, Guanajuato leads the country in homicides

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MND Staff

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December 22, 2020

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Citizens of Apaseo el Alto, Guanajuato, block a highway December 16 to protest insecurity.

At the end of 2020, Guanajuato will receive the unenviable title of Mexico’s most violent state for a second consecutive year.

Official statistics show that 4,190 people were murdered in the Bajío region state between January and November.

Guanajuato’s homicide count is 58.5% higher than that of Baja California, which ranks second for murders with 2,643 victims in the first 11 months of the year.

México state ranks third with 2,592 victims, followed by Chihuahua, Jalisco and Michoacán with 2,516, 2,421 and 2,229 victims, respectively.

There were almost 32,000 homicide victims in Mexico in the first 11 months of the year, which is likely to surpass 2019 as the most violent year on record.

homicides — Left-hand column indicates last year’s figures. Black circles show percentage increase this year. elfinanciero/sesnsp

The victim tally between January and November in Guanajuato, where the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel are engaged in a vicious turf war, was 30.5% higher than in the same period of 2019.

The significant increase has occurred despite – or perhaps because of – the arrest of Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel leader José Antonio “El Marro” Yépez Ortiz in early August.

In sheer numbers, Guanajuato was also the most violent state in Mexico in 2019 with more than 3,500 homicide victims. In per-capita terms, it was the fifth most violent state with 44.95 homicides per 100,000 residents. Colima ranked first, followed by Baja California, Chihuahua and Morelos.

After the first 11 months of 2020, Guanajuato is the fourth most violent state in per-capita terms with 50.11 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Baja California ranks first with a rate of 65.15 followed by Colima and Chihuahua with rates of 63.43 and 56.45, respectively.

Guanajuato is not the only state that has seen an increase in homicide numbers in 2020.

All told, 11 states recorded more murders between January and November of this year compared to the same period in 2019. Zacatecas saw the sharpest increase with the number of victims increasing 64.9% to 935 from 567.

Yucatán recorded the second biggest increase, but its homicide numbers remain very low. There were 43 murder victims in that state between January and November, a 53.6% increase compared to the 28 victims in the same period last year.

Homicides increased 47.4% to 672 in San Luis Potosí and 22.5% in Michoacán to 2,229.

Sonora, Durango, Campeche, Querétaro, Chihuahua and Hidalgo recorded increases of between 1% and 18%.

The number of homicide victims in the other 21 states declined in the first 11 months of the year.

Baja California Sur (BCS), Guerrero, Veracruz and Tamaulipas – four states that have been among the most violent in Mexico in recent years – were among the federal entities that saw a decrease in violence.

The number of homicide victims declined 30.5% in BCS, 22.2% in Guerrero, 16.2% in Veracruz and 15.2% in Tamaulipas.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Deputy minister sees ‘holes’ in report that government misled citizens

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MND Staff

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December 22, 2020

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Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell has rejected a report that claimed that the federal government misled citizens about the severity of the coronavirus situation in Mexico City.

The New York Times published a report Monday that said López-Gatell signed a document that notified Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum about the risk level in the capital on December 4.

The figures for hospital occupancy in Mexico City and the capital’s Covid-19 positivity rate on the document were lower than published official data. The lower figures allowed the federal government to avoid having to designate Mexico City as a red light “maximum” risk state at the start of December.

The capital consequently remained “high” risk orange on the stoplight map until last Saturday when red light restrictions were implemented.

Speaking at the Health Ministry’s coronavirus press briefing on Monday night, López-Gatell asserted that “there are several information holes” in The New York Times report.

“They took partial information [and] interpreted it without correct knowledge of the situation [and] the multiple mechanisms we have … to make the stoplight rating,” he said.

However, the coronavirus point man didn’t deny that there was a discrepancy between the information on the document he signed and official data that was published.

Natalie Kitroeff, the Times reporter who wrote the story, published a copy of the document on her Twitter account, writing: “Here is the document Hugo López-Gatell sent to Claudia Sheinbaum justifying keeping the city open. The numbers for hospital beds with ventilators and % positivity of Covid tests are both lower than what he and the govt. published.”

López-Gatell said that another imprecision of the report is “a vision” that Mayor Shienbaum and the federal government are not on the same page with regard to management of the pandemic.

“That’s not the case. Fortunately in the case of the metropolitan region we can … work together,” he said.

In addition, the deputy minister charged that the Times misinterpreted remarks he recently made about the stoplight color allocated to Mexico City.

Mayor Sheinbaum accused the newspaper of looking for confrontation.

The newspaper said that “López-Gatell has recently tried to minimize the importance of the traffic light system that he created and championed,” noting that he stated December 11 that “the color of the traffic light is at a certain point irrelevant.”

The coronavirus czar said Monday that his remark that the stoplight color was “at a certain point irrelevant” in no way meant that that the stoplight system itself was irrelevant.

“I said very clearly that the stoplight color we’re on [in Mexico City] is irrelevant to a certain point when we’re declaring alert for Covid, emergency for Covid. … When we declared alert for Covid, or more precisely when the Mexico City government declared alert for Covid, emergency for Covid, and issued a series of specific recommendations that correspond to lockdown measures, the color of the stoplight is irrelevant, not the tool of the stoplight [system]. It never stopped being relevant, never. It continues to be in use,” López-Gatell said.

Prior to Mexico City turning red on the stoplight map, the Mexico City government added an “alert” warning to the capital’s orange light designation.

Continuing his rebuttal of the Times report, López-Gatell said the vast majority of the coronavirus data presented by the federal government comes from statistics supplied to it by the states.

Therefore, “another of the imprecisions of this article is the idea that Mexico City couldn’t react because it didn’t have information. That’s not the case. The information that the federal government has comes from Mexico City,” he said.

“Besides, … Mexico City not only was able to react, it did react and reacted very well.”

The Times, however, didn’t say that the Mexico City government didn’t have the information it required to “react.”

Indeed, it said that Sheinbaum “could have broken with the federal government and put the city on lockdown earlier.”

However, the newspaper said “that move would have been politically risky” because the mayor has close ties to President López Obrador, who has “minimized the pandemic from the start.”

It is not the first time that López-Gatell has taken issue with a New York Times report about coronavirus in Mexico. In May, he rejected a report that the federal government was not reporting hundreds or possibly thousands of Covid-19 deaths identified by authorities in Mexico City.

Evidence that subsequently came to light, including an analysis of death certificates issued in the capital up until the middle of May, indicated that the Times‘ assertion was correct.

The newspaper’s latest report about coronavirus in Mexico also triggered a response from Mayor Sheinbaum.

She said the media has been reporting on alleged differences between her government and the federal government since the start of the pandemic but claimed “they’re completely wrong because there has been permanent coordination.”

Sheinbaum said her government provided an email to the Times reporter that established that Mexico City determined – just as the federal government did – that the capital would remain at the orange light level for the two weeks starting December 7.

The Times and other media are looking for “confrontation,” the mayor said. “They can publish anything [they want] but it’s important that our version [of events] is given.”

Source: Milenio (sp), El Financiero (sp)

Finding oxygen a challenge for families treating Covid victims at home

By

Michelle Aguilar

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December 22, 2020

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Customers line up for oxygen refills at a Mexico City supplier.

As Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations for the disease continue to increase in Mexico City, medical supply stores that refill oxygen tanks are reporting supply shortages.

Hector Silva, an employee at a store where a line of people waited patiently for oxygen to arrive, told the newspaper El Universal that he has seen supplies go scarce over the last two weeks. His store had been out of oxygen for 24 hours, he said, and he wasn’t sure when more might arrive.

Mauricio Fuentes, a customer at a store in the city’s Roma neighborhood, said on Saturday he had tried unsuccessfully to refill his 70-year-old father’s oxygen tank in the Tacubaya neighborhood. His father has Covid-19, Fuentes said, and he must refill the tank daily.

Antonio, another customer in the same line, said he had gone to two different areas looking for a tank refill.

The Mexico City government has called for citizens to go into “total isolation” as hospitals in the capital come under intense pressure due to an increase in the admission of coronavirus patients. Just over 85% of general care beds set aside for Covid-19 patients in Mexico City are currently occupied, according to federal data, while 74% of those with ventilators are in use.

Oxygen support is frequently needed not only for people with active cases of Covid-19 but also for recovering patients who continue to have intermittent problems with breathing.

According to Google Trends, search terms related to oxygen and oxygen tanks have increased in Mexico City since October, as well as in México state, Chiapas, Campeche and Tamaulipas. Appeals by people asking for leads on where to buy and refill oxygen tanks have become common on social media.

Last week, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said her government plans to determine whether prices for oxygen tanks and refills have gone up with the increase in coronavirus cases.

Source: El Universal (sp)

Logistics blamed for Covid vaccine failing to arrive; delivery expected Wednesday

By

MND Staff

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December 22, 2020

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A dry run of the vaccination process is conducted last Friday in Mexico City.

Mexico will not begin inoculating health workers against Covid-19 on Tuesday as planned because a first batch of 250,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has not yet arrived.

However, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday morning that the shipment was in transit and will arrive in Mexico Wednesday.

The federal government had announced that it would begin administering the Covid-19 vaccine to health workers in Mexico City and Coahuila on Tuesday.

The first 250,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine – Mexico has signed an agreement to purchase 34.4 million doses – were supposed to arrive from United States on Monday.

The Coahuila government attributed the delay to logistical problems at Pfizer.

Ebrard, who has taken a leading role in the government’s efforts to secure access to Covid-19 vaccines, said in late November that the Pfizer/BioNTech could arrive in Mexico five days after the health regulatory agency Cofrepris approved its use here.

But more than twice that length of time has passed since approval was announced on December 11.

As is the case in many countries around the world, authorities and citizens alike are eagerly awaiting the rollout of the vaccine as coronavirus case numbers and Covid-19 deaths continue to mount.

Mexico’s accumulated case tally rose to 1,325,915 on Monday with 5,370 new cases reported while the official death toll increased to 118,598 with 396 additional fatalities registered.

The government of Coahuila, which was an early hotspot in Mexico’s coronavirus pandemic and ranks seventh among the 32 states for accumulated cases, said it had “everything ready” to administer the first Covid-19 vaccines and was just waiting for the doses to arrive.

A shipment of thousands of syringes arrived in the state on Saturday and preparations were made to inoculate health workers at military facilities in Saltillo, Torreón and Piedras Negras.

Military facilities and hospitals in Mexico City had also prepared to being administering vaccines on Tuesday.

The delay in the arrival of the first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is a setback for the federal government, which has been widely criticized for its handling of the pandemic.

Some doctors believe that the government will also bungle the distribution and application of Covid-19 vaccines.

Dr. Francisco Moreno, head of the Covid-19 unit at the private ABC medical center in Mexico City, told The Los Angeles Times that “the management of the pandemic has been so bad that we are not optimistic about how the vaccine is going to be managed.”

“The people at the top are not doing what has to be done,” he said.

A veteran doctor at at Mexico City public hospital identified only as Claudia said: “We are living in a catastrophe right now — we have patients sharing one tank of oxygen and there is a shortage of everything: ventilators, beds, medicines, safety gear, medical personnel. I have faith in the effectiveness of the vaccine. But I have no faith in the abilities of authorities to handle the logistics of vaccination, because they have demonstrated that they are not capable.”

In addition to the Pfizer/BioNTech, the federal government has agreements to purchase 77.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine and 35 million doses of China’s CanSino Biologics vaccine.

But their approval in Mexico and delivery is not expected until sometime next year. According to the vaccination plan presented by the government on December 8, one million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Mexico in each of January, February and March and a shipment of 12 million doses is expected in April

But even if all those shipments, and the 250,000 doses expected to arrive before the end of the year, reach Mexico as scheduled, only 7.6 million people will have been vaccinated by the end of April as each person must be given two shots three weeks apart.

That figure would represent less than 6% of Mexico’s population of almost 130 million, leaving the majority of citizens susceptible to developing a serious Covid-19 illness. Mexico’s pandemic – one of the worst in the world in terms of case numbers and deaths – appears unlikely to end any time soon.

Source: El Universal (sp), El Sol de México (sp), La Silla Rota (sp), Milenio (sp), The Los Angeles Times (en)

‘Rapid delivery’ letter took 4 months to get from Monterrey to Dallas

By

Michelle Aguilar

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December 21, 2020

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You can expect delays with Mexico's postal service.

It took 116 days for a letter mailed through the Mexican postal service to get from Monterrey, Nuevo León, to Dallas, Texas, the newspaper Reforma reported.

And that was after paying for “rapid delivery.”

Mexico’s notoriously slow mail service was the focus of an experiment by newspaper staff, who mailed the letter on August 25 as an experiment to test the post office’s efficiency. The letter finally arrived at its destination in Dallas — ironically with two postmark stickers bearing images of turtles — on Saturday, four months later.

Other letters were sent at the regular price to the municipalities of Allende, Nuevo León, Múzquiz, Coahuila, and even to a neighborhood in west Monterrey but they have yet to arrive despite being guaranteed delivery within two weeks.

The address in the Monterrey neighborhood to which the letter was sent is only 15 kilometers from the post office where reporters dropped it off.

The letter to Dallas, Reforma said, apparently did not even leave the Monterrey office where it was dropped off until September 11, i.e., 17 days after it was given to postal staff.

The newspaper also highlighted the story of Ernesto Rowe, an American citizen who tried to vote by absentee ballot in the recent U.S. presidential election but was unable to after his mailed-in ballot ended up in limbo in a post office in Mexico City.

Correos Mexico has suffered under competition from private mail services and the technological advances that has reduced the use of postal services around the world. Nevertheless, Reforma said, its snail’s pace is an issue in light of the fact that it managed a budget of 5.4 billion pesos this year. In a recent tour Reforma staff took of post offices in Mexico City, Monterrey, and Guadalajara, they found little had been done to modernize operations or provide better service.

Source: Reforma (sp)

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