A man from Querétaro has fulfilled a promise he made to his deceased friend by dancing at her grave.
Martha Aderany, 17, died in hospital on April 5, two days after she was hit in the head by a metal post that was holding up a tarp at a food festival in Santiago de Anaya, Hidalgo.
Martha, an avid dancer from the neighboring Hidalgo municipality of Cardonal, and Gabriel, a young man from San Juan del Río, Querétaro, met at a dance competition, became fast friends and made a pledge to dance together one day.
Martha’s untimely death appeared to make keeping that promise impossible, but Gabriel had other ideas.
He was unable to attend her funeral due to work commitments but recently traveled to Hidalgo to visit Martha’s grave in the San Miguel Tlazintla cemetery in Cardonal.
#Entérate 🗣️ll Gabriel, un joven originario de San Juan del Río, #Querétaro, viajó hasta Cardonal #Hidalgo, para bailar huapango junto a la tumba de su amiga Martha Aderany, quien falleció en el accidente de la Muestra Gastronómica de Santiago de Anaya.
To keep his promise to his friend, and pay tribute to her, Gabriel, dressed in a traditional outfit, danced the huapango around her grave. Huapango is both a Mexican music style and a dance.
A video of Gabriel’s light-footed dance moves went viral on social media. The specific dance he performed – El Fandanguito – was Matha’s favorite huapango, according to one Twitter user.
A company in Canada is looking for Mexican cabinetmakers and offering a 37,500 peso (US $1,830) monthly salary.
The luxury furniture company has called for candidates with three years’ carpentry experience and will provide successful candidates with health insurance, a savings fund and a fixed-term contract.
The company is looking for committed carpenters with a knack for analysis and troubleshooting, good communication skills, a will to improve and availability for travel.
The cabinetmakers would be expected to assemble furniture, sand materials and perform other carpentry tasks.
Language skills aren’t a requirement, but basic knowledge of English and/or French will be considered favorably.
The nighttime shift pattern is demanding: 5 p.m. to 4 a.m., Monday-Friday.
The salary offer is substantial for many Mexican workers: minimum wage earners, who numbered 19 million in January, earn a daily rate of 172.87 pesos (US $8.45) in most of Mexico.
The minimum wage is higher on the U.S. border, where the 43 municipalities in the Northern Border Free Zone enjoy a daily rate of 260.34 pesos (US $12.72). The 25-kilometer stretch is given special treatment in economic matters.
However, many workers are not formally employed. The president of the Mexican Association of Human Capital Companies (AMECH) recently told the Senate that less than a third of the country’s active workers are contracted.
It’s likely that a large proportion of manual laborers operate in the informal sector, meaning that they could earn less than minimum wage.
Although trash is supposed to be stored at the Holbox site temporarily, 50,000 tonnes have piled up there, and the government can't afford to move it.
Over 50,000 tonnes of trash have accumulated at the transfer station on the island of Holbox, Quintana Roo, triggering concerns that a health and environmental emergency is imminent.
Several local businesspeople have expressed concerns about the impact the masses of garbage will have on the environment, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Holbox is a narrow, approximately 40-kilometer-long island located off the northeastern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Popular with tourists, the island is separated from the mainland by a shallow lagoon that is home to bird species such as flamingos and pelicans.
The amount of trash at the island’s transfer center increased 200% in recent weeks due to the influx of Holy Week visitors, Milenio reported.
As a transfer station, garbage is only supposed to be stored there temporarily and then moved elsewhere. The site was closed for use as a landfill by the federal environmental agency Profepa in 2021 but eventually, the town was allowed to use it again but only as a transfer station. However, the businesspeople that spoke with Milenio said that the site is being used again as an open-air dump.
Profepa closed the site as a landfill in 2021.
The accumulating garbage could contaminate water sources and soil on Holbox – as well as the lagoon and sea that surround it – and block drains and cause illness among locals. Biologist Rebeca León Castro told Milenio that the uncovered garbage would attract rodents, scavengers such as vultures and insects, which could generate public health risks.
In December 2020, local authorities got rid of some 75,000 tonnes of trash that had accumulated at the site via a process known as thermo-valorization, which uses heat to decompose inorganic waste.
But the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas, where Holbox is located, currently doesn’t have the resources required to pay a private company to get rid of the trash and avert what could become an environmental and health crisis, according to a local government source who spoke with Milenio.
The source said that the Lázaro Cárdenas government is doing what it can to respond to the situation and has asked for help from local businesses, but little assistance has been forthcoming.
Local officials there said that the former municipal government allowed 35,000 tonnes of trash to accumulate at the transfer center. The new government gradually solved the problem by shipping the garbage to the mainland for disposal.
The garbage disposal situation on Holbox has led to several parts of the island accumulating bags of trash.
Environmentalists say that the state Environment Ministry has done little to combat trash problems on Holbox, Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, a much larger Caribbean Sea island located off the coast of Playa del Carmen.
The coffin from which the Quintana Roo man extracted his mother's body. internet
A man from Quintana Roo exhumed his mother’s body and took it through the town on a cargo tricycle on Thursday night.
Wilbert Puch Hau, 47, transported his mother through the Maya community of Noh-Bec, believing that she was still alive, authorities said. Hermelinda Hau Mis had recently died at 70 and was buried in the community cemetery, some 290 kilometers south of Cancún.
The mayor of Noh-Bec, Aurelio Aguilar Hernández, reported at 10:40 p.m. on Thursday that someone had entered the town’s pantheon, desecrated a tomb and taken out a body.
Witnesses said that Puch Hau claimed to have had “a revelation” that his mother was sleeping, which inspired him to extract the recently buried body.
Puch Hau’s father, widower Longimo Puch Chuc, 81, confirmed that his son had had a dream that his mother was still alive. Relatives spoke to Puch Hau to persuade him that he was mistaken, and told him that he couldn’t keep the body.
The body was returned to its coffin and reburied at 1:20 a.m. on Friday. The tomb was closed by relatives.
Longimo did not file any complaint against his son for the theft of the body. However, a public attorney for indigenous issues, Eustaquio Pech Ku, said that the state Attorney General’s Office had received a complaint from police.
The act could be investigated “as a crime against respect for the dead and against the rules of burial covered in the criminal code of the state,” Pech Ku added.
Mexico’s new educational model’s curriculum will emphasize the common good rather than competition among students.
The federal government’s new curriculum model will teach students to share rather than be competitive, according to the Ministry of Public Education (SEP).
Marx Arriaga, SEP’s director of educational materials, said Tuesday that existing textbooks will be scrapped under the new model because they promote neoliberal concepts and that students won’t be required to sit international standardized tests such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s PISA tests – and educational objectives will be aligned with the ideals of the Fourth Transformation, or 4T, a byword both for the ruling government and the vast change it says it is bringing to Mexico.
PISA tests are benchmarking exams to assess school performance in which students respond to approximately two hours of test questions in reading, mathematics and science and answer a 30-minute student questionnaire. The school’s principal and other directors also provide information on their educational institution by filling out a questionnaire.
Mexico’s new educational model’s curriculum will place much greater emphasis on sharing and the common good than pitting individual students against each other, Arriaga said.
The model, which is still being developed, will be “libertarian” and “humanist” and put an end to racism in the education system and “standardized tests that segregate society,” he said.
Arriaga said education has become a business in Mexico that is used to legitimize societal problems such as classism.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s morning news conference, the SEP official used a long list of adjectives to describe the existing “neoliberal” education model, including “punitive, racist, Eurocentric, colonial, inhumane, classist, elitist and patriarchal.”
He charged that education has become a business in Mexico “that absorbs billions of pesos a year” and is used to legitimize societal problems such as classism.
While the new education model hasn’t yet been introduced, Arriaga said that the Education Ministry — which he charged had become a “bureaucratized and dehumanized institution” — has been “re-engineered” over the past three years. The educational materials chief has dedicated much of his time to overseeing the process to develop new textbooks that confine neoliberalism — one of López Obrador’s professed pet hates — to the dustbin of history. Teachers have played a key role in the process.
The president said Wednesday that the new textbooks will help students become good citizens. “We have to review the educational contents. We’re not going to be forming … dehumanized, selfish people,” López Obrador said, adding that “that was the plan of the neoliberal model.”
“… We’re going to be informing constantly about the education plan,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.
“Taking care of teachers is very important because education is in essence a teacher who wants to teach and a student who wants to learn. Where? Wherever. Of course, it’s better if the educational facilities are good, but the basic things are the educators and those being educated,” López Obrador said.
Arriaga said Tuesday that teachers would be considered “community leaders” under the new education model and would no longer be stigmatized.
Some education experts were critical of the education vision he outlined on Tuesday. Alma Maldonado, an education researcher at the National Polytechnic Institute, said there is more ideology than pedagogy in the government’s education plan.
“It’s a completely ideological proposal … that borders on the absurd,” she said. “It would seem that everything from before is terrible and neoliberal.”
Marco Fernández, an academic at the Tec de Monterrey university, said that the government’s plan is confusing and ambiguous. He also said that the SEP should clarify whether the new education model will be trialed in a pilot program.
Both Maldonado and Fernández said that the model didn’t appear to take into account pandemic-related problems, such as the high number of students who dropped out of school or fell behind in their learning when they couldn’t attend in-person classes.
“The most ironic thing is that this discussion is not focused on the educational emergency,” Fernández said.
“[Education officials] intend to behave as if nothing had happened, as if enrollment in the different education systems had not declined,” he added.
Mexico City's busy international airport is one of many across the country that will see maintenance and upgrades. Jose Antonio García/internet
The federal government and the private sector is expected to invest a combined 12.36 billion pesos (US $603.6 million) this year to maintain and upgrade airport infrastructure.
Almost 80% of the resources will come from airport operators with the remainder to come from the government.
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT), public resources totaling 2.53 billion pesos (US $123.7 million) will be spent on airport projects.
Just under 681 million pesos will be allocated to upgrades and maintenance at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM), the country’s busiest airport and one which the Federal Civil Aviation Agency said in March has reached its saturation point.
The airport, operated by a state-owned company, will spend 126 million pesos of its own money on improvements.
Puerto Vallarta’s Gustavo Díaz airport will get a new terminal, paid for by its operators, Pacific Airport Group.
Airports and Auxiliary Services (ASA), a federal government corporation, will receive 927.7 million pesos to carry out a range of projects. They include modernization of the airports at Puerto Escondido, Ciudad del Carmen, Puebla, Colima and Tepic and fuel station projects at the Cancún, Guanajuato and Los Cabos airports.
The government agency Seneam (Navigation Services for Mexican Airspace) will get 800 million pesos to work on projects related to restructuring the use of the country’s airspace.
Questions have been raised about the viability of three central Mexico airports – the AICM, the new Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and the Toluca International Airport – operating in close proximity to each other, especially once flight numbers increase at the AIFA.
The lion’s share of the airport investment in 2022 will be made by the ASUR, GAP and OMA airport groups, according to SICT estimates. They are expected to spend a combined total of almost 9.83 billion pesos (US $479.7 million) on airport projects this year.
Among the most important projects to be carried out by GAP – the Pacific Airport Group – are upgrades to the Guadalajara airport, phase 1 of the construction of a new terminal at the Puerto Vallarta airport and the expansion of taxiways at the Los Cabos and Hermosillo airports.
OMA – the Central North Airport Group – will expand and remodel the terminal at the Ciudad Juárez airport and carry out runway projects and other upgrades at the Monterrey, Torreón and Culiacán airports.
ASUR – the Southeast Airport Group – is set to carry out a 2-billion-peso project to expand Terminal 4 at the Cancún airport, Mexico’s second busiest airport, and will also increase the size of the terminals at the Mérida, Tapachula and Cozumel airports.
In addition to its allocations to the AICM, ASA and Seneam, the federal government will spend over 1.6 billion pesos this year on the rail project to connect the AIFA to central Mexico City. The project, which is months behind schedule, will expand the existing Mexico City suburban train line, which currently runs between Buenavista, a neighborhood near the historic center, and Cuautitlán in Mexico state.
A new section of track will connect the Lechería station to the AIFA, which is located some 50 kilometers north of central Mexico City in the México state municipality of Zumpango. The supplementary section is expected to open in 2023, with trips from Buenavista to take just 45 minutes, according to President López Obrador.
Cuban migrants found in a trailer in Coahuila in March.
More than 120,000 migrants have been detained by immigration agents this year, the National Immigration Institute (INM) said in statements this month.
The figures for the state where most migrants are halted — Chiapas — show that there has been an increase in detentions there compared to the monthly average in 2021, but it is unclear whether arrivals of undocumented migrants in Mexico has increased.
The INM said in a statement on April 15 that 109,186 of the 115,379 migrants detained until April 13 were from Central America, South America and the Caribbean, while 6,188 were from Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania, leaving the origins of five migrants undeclared.
The institute added that some 22% of the migrants were detained in Chiapas, while 11% were halted in Mexico City, followed by Baja California, Tabasco and Veracruz. 97,730 were adults and 17,649 were children, 3,544 of whom were traveling alone.
Migrants crossing from Guatemala to Mexico via a little-guarded river crossing.
Central Americans made up just over half the total number of migrants detained this year until April 13. Hondurans and Guatemalans each made up 19% of that group, while 7% were from Nicaragua and 6% were from El Salvador.
Aside from Central America, 14% of the migrants were from Cuba. The INM didn’t confirm how many of the detained migrants were from Haiti, despite people from the Caribbean nation being one of the main groups that has entered Mexico without papers in recent years.
Asian and European nationals both accounted for more than 2,000 undocumented migrants, while 1,282 migrants were from Africa and 12 were from Oceania, the INM confirmed, without specifying their nationalities.
“The INM reaffirms its commitment to safe, orderly and regular migration with full respect and safeguarding of the rights of those in transit through Mexico,” the INM said.
A second INM statement, released on April 25, said agents had detained 5,688 migrants in the previous four days.
It confirmed there were 200 unaccompanied children and also offered more information on the migrants’ countries of origin. It said the migrants were from 42 different countries, largely from Central America and Cuba, but also Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Haiti.
With Mexico’s refugee agency overwhelmed by applications, some migrants join illegal caravans going north rather than wait a year or more.
However, the institute exposed the complexity of the migratory phenomenon by revealing the Asian, European and African migrants’ countries of origin. Among those nations were France, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Yemen, Romania, China, Ivory Coast and Egypt.
The INM said that many of the migrants detained since April 21 had been found in safe houses, trailer containers or trailers for cattle sometimes in “an overcrowded condition, without ventilation, water and food.”
It added that other migrants were found on foot in the desert, in mountains or on highways “after being assaulted, injured or abandoned by supposed guides” or traffickers.
The INM normally takes migrants to detention centers manned by armed police and observed by police in watchtowers to prevent their escape. The INM terms the detainment of migrants as “rescue,” which means no judicial process is required for their detention.
Such detentions increased nearly threefold in Chiapas in annual terms last year: in 2020 there were 25,000 detentions, compared to 67,376 in 2021.
Passing through Mexico legally is barely viable: the refugee agency COMAR, Mexico’s government refugee agency, has been unable to process a flood of asylum applications, leaving migrants stranded without the right to work or travel. Some have waited more than a year for their applications to be resolved.
Some decide to break the law and travel north in migrant caravans and many receive humanitarian visas some way into their journey. Others, barred from legal transportation such as coaches, pay traffickers to take them through Mexico. The journey can be dangerous: at least 55 migrants died and over 100 more were injured in a horrific truck crash in Chiapas in December.
Many other migrants who cross into Mexico are never caught: over 4,000 migrants crossed the southern border every day in 2021 on average, a 44.5% increase over 2020, the INM said in December.
Mexico’s tough migration policy has largely been the result of pressure from U.S. authorities: former United States president Donald Trump said on Saturday that Mexico “folded” and agreed to place troops on its northern border to stem immigration to the U.S. when he threatened in 2019 to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican imports.
U.S. President Joe Biden has so far found no solution. Record numbers of migrants attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico land border in his first year in office.
Enriched early on by the discovery of silver deposits in the 1500s, Guanajuato has for centuries been a city of wealth and culture.
Photos by Robert Knight
The city of Guanajuato, is a city like no other I have ever known.
In 1548, a prospector discovered silver in the mountains surrounding what today is the capital of the state by the same name. By the mid-1700s, Guanajuato had become the wealthiest city in Mexico. The owner of the La Valenciana mine paved the path from his house to the nearby church with gold so that his daughter would not have to touch the soil on her way to be married.
Built in a narrow valley between the mountains that made it rich, Guanajuato offers the visitor a beautiful example of the art and architecture of the age of the Spanish viceroys and plenty of history, culture and gastronomy.
One imposing edifice is the Alhondiga de Granaditas, which played a key role during Mexico’s war for independence from Spain.
Spanish forces had turned the former grain storage into a fort. In 1810, it is said, a group of revolutionaries led by a worker from the mines nicknamed “El Pipila” stormed the fort. From the safety of this nearly impenetrable building, the soldiers shot and hurled fire and rocks on the mob trying to enter, so “El Pipila” strapped a large slab of rock to his back to shield himself and with a torch made his way to the fortress. He burned the door down and the intruders took the fort.
One of Guanajuato city’s most beloved attractions is the Callejón del Beso, (Alley of the Kiss) and its Romeo and Juliet-style legend.
Today, the building has been turned into a history and art museum with a focus on the state of Guanajuato. A colossal statue of “El Pipila” overlooks the city from a nearby hill. You can visit the statue for a great view of the city by taking the funicular located behind the Juárez theater.
Guanajuato features a series of narrow alleys that wind their way through the center. The most famous of these is the Callejón del Beso (Alley of the Kiss), where a wealthy mine owner and his daughter lived. A simple miner and his son lived in the house across the alley. Only 27 inches separated the balconies of the two homes.
One day, the girl’s father surprised her in the middle of kissing the neighbor’s son across their balconies. Furious, he told her he would rather kill her than see her marry beneath her station. But young love would have its way.
Once again, the two were found leaning across the 27 inches and kissing. Enraged, the father stabbed his daughter to death. Soon afterward, the lovestruck young man also committed suicide rather than live without the love of his life. It is said that if two lovers kiss on this spot, they will be together forever, a legend that attracts couples to recreate the kiss or take selfies in the alley below the balconies. Addresses are difficult in Guanajuato because of the rabbit warren of streets, but just ask anyone for directions to the Callejón del Beso and they can direct you.
Today, the city’s alleyways come alive with merry tunes as groups of minstrels wind their way through the streets. These groups of mostly university students dressed in period costumes accompany tourists in the historic center, playing, singing and generally creating a festive atmosphere.
Perhaps Guanajuato’s most famous attraction is the Guanajuato Mummy Museum. Between 1870 and the mid-1950s, a local tax was levied on city residents to pay for maintaining the cemetery. The bodies of members of families unable to pay this “eternal rest” tax were disinterred to make room, and the soil’s quality and the climate in the area caused the natural mummification of some corpses. Today 57 of these mummies are on display at the museum.
Guanajuato’s Museo de las Momias is a macabre but fascinating collection of mummies created by accident.
The exhibit includes the youngest mummy on record, a six-month fetus. The fetus and mother both died in a cholera epidemic. Many of the clothes are still intact on the corpses after more than 100 years. One woman even appears to have been buried alive by accident. The position of her body and the expression on her face would indicate she faced a horrific end.
Guanajuato also has Diego Rivera’s childhood home. Located down the street from the imposing Neoclassical University of Guanajuato campus, it has been converted into a museum that showcases the progression of Rivera’s art.
In the heart of the city lies the Juárez Theatre. Also constructed in Neoclassical style, its facade is topped by bronze statues of the Muses.
The theater has been in use since its opening in 1903. Today, among other events throughout the year, it hosts some of the events of the International Cervantes Festival in October each year. The event boasts international performers and is a major attraction for lovers of all branches of the arts.
In front of the Juárez Theatre is a pleasant triangular garden flanked by numerous restaurants. It’s a popular meeting place for residents and tourists. During dinner hours, mariachi bands entertain throughout the area.
What about when you’re done sightseeing? While there are many excellent restaurants here, two of my favorites are Truco 7 and La Vie en Rose.
In keeping with Guanajuato’s appreciation of world cultures, La Vie en Rose has the feel of a French bistro and authentic French food. Internet
Truco 7 is an affordable Mexican restaurant at 7 Truco street, next to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guanajuato. Legend has it that at one time, Truco 7 was a place where men came to drink and gamble. One night, a local man who was losing bet a stranger his wife against the stranger’s pot. The man lost his wife to the stranger, who, it’s said, turned out to be the Devil.
Whenever I eat at Truco 7, I often have the garlic soup with an egg. It’s always good. There’s no gamble there.
La Vie en Rose, on calle Cantarranas, is a French bistro that looks transported from a Paris street. The owner is a French woman who studied in Guanajuato, married a Mexican student at the local university, opened a restaurant and serves the most authentic French food in the state.
Whenever I’m in the city, I try to stay at Casa Bertha. There are many more upscale hotels in town, but Casa Bertha offers the best value for the money. Well located near the heart of the city, the rooms are clean and ample, most with a full kitchen and private bath. Best of all, rooms cost less than US $40 per night.
If you drive to Guanajuato, I suggest parking outside the city and taking a taxi or bus into town. It is a walking town anyway.
However you get there, go!
Robert Knight arrived in Mexico 25 years ago to teach English at the ITESM campus in Irapuato, Guanajuato. He has since owned a language school and is now retired, living as a freelance travel writer in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero.
Governor Alfaro, center, at a conference announcing his government's health plan.
The Jalisco government announced Monday that it will invest more than 6 billion pesos in health care infrastructure over the next three years.
Governor Enrique Alfaro, whose six year term will end in 2024, said that his administration will spend 6.16 billion pesos (US $301.5 million) to build new hospitals and health care centers and upgrade existing ones.
The investment will be made without taking on debt, he said, explaining that the resources will come from tax revenue and a reassignment of the state budget.
“We’re not going to take on one peso of debt, it’s very important to clarify that,” Alfaro said.
The governor, who has hinted at a presidential run in 2024, said that his government’s aim is for Jalisco to have the best public health system in the country when he leaves office.
Funds will be allocated across the western state, which has 125 municipalities. Among the existing hospitals that will get upgrades are the Hospital Civil de Oriente in Tonalá, the Jalisco Cancer Institute in state capital Guadalajara and the Zoquipan Maternity and Children’s Hospital in Zapopan. Many community and regional hospitals will also be upgraded.
“With this plan we’re seeking to finish [by the end of 2024] all the health infrastructure projects we need to have Jalisco as a state leader in … public health,” Alfaro said.
He also said his government is aiming to be able to provide health care services to all Jalisco residents who don’t have access to social security benefits.
The government’s proposed investment in 2022, 2023 and 2024 is more than triple the amount it spent on health care infrastructure between 2019 and 2021. In Alfaro’s first three years in office, the government spent 1.66 billion pesos (US $81.2 million) on upgrading and maintaining the state’s health care facilities.
Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday that face masks are no longer essential.
Children aged 12 and over will be able to register for a COVID-19 vaccine shot starting this Thursday, the federal government announced Tuesday.
The government said earlier this month it would offer vaccines to children under 15 after previously asserting that inoculating younger adolescents and kids – with the exception of those aged 12 t0 14 with underlying health problems – was not necessary.
Speaking at President López Obrador’s Tuesday morning press conference, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell stressed that “all healthy and unhealthy children” aged 12 and over will now be eligible for a shot. Youths (or their parents) will be able to register their interest in getting vaccinated on the government’s vaccination website.
López-Gatell, who has led the government’s pandemic response, also said that 90% of adults and 87% of the eligible population have been vaccinated. “This allows us to have significant protection against serious cases,” he said.
All told, some 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, including over 45 million booster shots.
For his part, López Obrador said the the country’s coronavirus outbreak is “subsiding almost completely” and that the stage of the “serious pandemic that left us so much pain and suffering” has ended.
In other COVID-19 news:
• López-Gatell said that the use of face masks is no longer essential but qualified his remark by adding that that they can still be useful in enclosed spaces.
“We’re not going to declare an end to the obligatory use of face makes because we never said they were mandatory. But we can say that the use of face masks is not essential at this time,” he said.
• A mask mandate in Baja California no longer applies after Governor Marina del Pilar Ávila Olmeda announced Sunday that the mandate would end Monday.
“The obligation of using one in public spaces, whether they are open or enclosed, will no longer exist,” she said.
Several other states have dropped mask mandates, but only for outdoor public areas.
• López-Gatell announced Tuesday that the federal government will not issue any new coronavirus stoplight maps given the reduced transmission risk. The one currently in force, on which all 32 states are low risk green, will expire on May 1.
The coronavirus czar noted that the stoplight map, which has been a feature of the government’s pandemic management since the middle of 2020, has been solid green for the past seven weeks. The risk level is not expected to increase in the coming months, he said.
Each stoplight color – maximum risk red, high risk orange, medium risk yellow and low risk green – was accompanied by recommended economic and social restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, but state governments have the power to devise and implement their own pandemic rules.
• Mexico’s official COVID-19 death toll rose to 324,134 on Monday with five additional fatalities reported. An additional 140 new cases were added to the accumulated case tally, which stands at 5.73 million. There are just over 4,000 estimated active cases, whereas at the peak of the omicron-fueled wave in January there were over 300,000.
