An additional 788 COVID-19 fatalities were reported on Tuesday, lifting Mexico’s official death toll to 279,894.
The Health Ministry also reported 7,682 new coronavirus cases, increasing the accumulated tally to 3.69 million.
There are 47,569 estimated active cases, a 1.7% increase compared to Monday. Tabasco is the only state with more than 100 active cases per 100,000 people. The Gulf coast state currently has about 120 active cases for every 100,000 residents.
Mexico City and Colima rank second and third respectively. Both states have about 90 active cases per 100,000 residents.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are six states with fewer than 20 active cases per 100,000 people, according to Health Ministry data. They are Chiapas, Guerrero, Chihuahua, Veracruz, Michoacán and Sinaloa.
About 73% of Mexican adults have had at least one COVID-19 vaccine shot but only about half of all citizens – adults and children – are vaccinated. Only 36% of citizens are fully vaccinated, according to The New York Times vaccinations tracker.
The federal government expects to have offered at least one dose to all adults by the end of October but has not announced plans to inoculate children apart from approximately 1 million minors with health conditions that make them vulnerable to serious COVID-19 illness.
Mexico has the fourth highest COVID-19 death toll in the world and the 18th highest mortality rate with 218.8 fatalities per 100,000 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Despite the high death toll, President López Obrador has characterized the government’s management of the pandemic as a success, writing in his new book that “we’ve done everything humanly possible to confront the pandemic and save lives.”
Airport traffic indicates tourism is recovering in Cancún.
Last month was the busiest September ever for arrivals at Cancún airport, a clear sign that the Caribbean coast resort city is recovering strongly from the pandemic-induced tourism downturn.
Just over 1.66 million passengers flew to Cancún last month, according to airport operator ASUR, a 94% spike compared to September last year and a 4.4% increase compared to the same month of 2019.
Just over 56% of the incoming passengers, or 933,000 people, arrived on international flights while just under 44%, or 728,000 people, flew in from other airports in Mexico.
While the numbers are encouraging, tourism consultancy firm GEMES believes that international arrivals could have been higher had two factors not deterred United States citizens from traveling to Mexico.
An increase in coronavirus cases in the United States changed people’s perceptions about the safety of travel and caused a significant number of travelers to cancel or postpone their plans to come to Mexico, according to GEMES.
Secondly, the opening up of Canada and European nations to United States tourists lured people to those destinations and away from Mexico, the firm said.
“… There is a strong appetite to return to Europe and other destinations in the United States market,” GEMES said.
“While travel restrictions were reimposed in September in some European countries, it is only a matter of time until they will be lifted again.”
Mexico has been an attractive destination for many international tourists because it hasn’t required incoming travelers to show a negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination, or go into mandatory quarantine. The absence of restrictions was blamed for fueling coronavirus outbreaks in tourism hotspots such as Cancún and Los Cabos earlier in the pandemic.
However, the coronavirus situation in Quintana Roo – the state where Cancún, Playa del Carmen, Tulum, Cozumel and other popular tourism destinations are located – has improved markedly in recent weeks and it is now low risk green on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map. There are just 545 active cases in the state, the federal Health Ministry reported Tuesday.
The sargassum situation has also recently improved after large amounts of the seaweed reached Quintana Roo’s coastline earlier this year. A map published Tuesday by the Quintana Roo Sargassum Monitoring Network showed that there are no beaches with excessive amounts of the weed and just six with abundant quantities.
Twelve beaches have moderate amounts, 47 have only very low quantities and 15 are completely free of sargassum.
National Action Party lawmakers say no to increased electricity tariffs.
The federal government will attempt to convince all political parties to support its plan to change the constitution to overhaul the energy sector, President López Obrador said Monday.
The president sent a constitutional bill to Congress last Friday that seeks to guarantee 54% electricity market participation for the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) – an increase of 16% compared to the share it says it currently holds – and get rid of two independent regulators: the National Hydrocarbons Commission and the Energy Regulatory Commission.
If approved, the law would partially reverse the 2013 energy reform, which opened up the electricity and oil markets to foreign and private companies.
Speaking at his regular news conference, López Obrador rejected warnings that the initiative contravenes the new North American free trade agreement, the USMCA, which took effect last year. If that were the case, the United States government would already have protested, financial markets would have reacted and the value of the peso would have dropped, he said.
Asked whether the government would seek the support of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to get the bill through Congress (constitutional reforms require two-thirds support), the president responded:
“We’re going to seek to convince everyone. To the priistas [PRI lawmakers] we just have to say: ‘Listen, did you already forget that the president Adolfo López Mateos, who was from the PRI, nationalized the electricity industry?’ And why did he do it? Because the country had to be electrified.”
López Obrador said it would be “interesting” if opposition parities such as the PRI and the National Action Party (PAN) chose to defend foreign energy companies such as Spanish firm Iberdrola – a favorite punching bag of the president – rather than support the CFE.
He also said that lawmakers who vote against the bill will be named and shamed at his morning press conferences.
“… It’s not a threat nor a warning [but] I say to the lawmakers there will not be anonymity, we all have to show our faces because [this issue] concerns the interests of the people,” the president said.
The aim of the bill, he said, is to guarantee low electricity prices for residential and business customers. “How are we going to industrialize the country with expensive electricity?” López Obrador asked.
The PAN, the Democratic Revolution Party and the Citizens Movement party have all rejected the president’s proposal, while the PRI has indicated it is willing to discuss it, even though it spearheaded the 2013 reform.
If the PRI were to support the bill, its alliance with the PAN would come to an end, the latter party’s leader in the lower house told a press conference on Tuesday.
Accompanied by other PAN lawmakers, Deputy Jorge Romero also said that if the electricity reform passes Congress – in which the ruling Morena party no longer has a supermajority as a result of elections in June – and is ratified by a majority of state legislatures, the National Action Party will challenge the law at the Supreme Court.
He reiterated that the PAN is vehemently opposed to the proposed reform because it poses a threat to free competition, a principle the court sought to protect in rescinding key elements of a federal energy policy earlier this year.
Contradicting the president’s claim, Romero said that giving the CFE greater control of the market will increase electricity generation costs, resulting in high prices for consumers.
PAN lawmakers held up placards in the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday, and at Romero’s press conference, to express their opposition to what they believe would be a tarifazo, or steep increase to electricity prices.
The PAN has an ally in the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), a think tank, which warned that the approval of the reform “would represent a historic setback for the construction of a more competitive Mexico.”
IMCO said the proposal, if approved, would create a situation in which the CFE is both an electricity generator and a regulator of the same market.
“In other words the company would have the authority to establish rates and grant permits as well as decide which power plants can inject their electricity into the grid and when,” it said.
The think tank said electricity prices would increase and greater damage would be inflicted on the environment, as the CFE is heavily reliant on fossil fuels and renewable companies’ participation in the market would be limited.
It said that strengthening the CFE – a stated aim of the president – requires recognition that the company “doesn’t have the resources to be the sole player in all links of the electricity value chain – generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization.”
The company should instead “prioritize those segments that generate greater profitability, such as its legal monopolies in electricity transmission and distribution and its fuel buying and selling business,” IMCO said.
“Instead of strengthening the company, the initiative weakens it by forcing it to carry out activities in which it loses money.”
Energy analysts have said the reform would hinder investment in Mexico’s energy sector, which would have a knock-on effect on economic growth.
Two years ago, we sold our house in south Monterrey. I had already retired and my wife was about to. We wanted a single-level house, hard to find in the city. But we could afford a quinta and still have the budget to improve it.
A quinta is, nominally, a fifth of a hectare, 2,000 square meters, but you’ll find that homes on anywhere from 1,000 to 3,500 square meters are called quintas.
Should you buy a casa or a quinta? Well, there are pluses and minuses:
On the minus side, it’s a lot more physical work looking after a quinta. It probably includes a pool, a well, a palapa, a barbacoa pit, a barbecue and lots of grass. Ours has two separate electrical circuits, a four-zone irrigation system and miles of plumbing. If you’re not reasonably fit and active, you’ll need to hire a gardener or handyman.
On the plus side, the extra activity keeps you fit. My gym is now the wheelbarrow, spade, lawnmower and line trimmer. I’ve lost weight and gained muscle.
The home we ended up buying — its original style.
Quintas are not often found in the city but in rural or semi-rural areas. A big plus is the clean air. Breathing in Monterrey was like smoking a pack of cigarettes every day — a week after moving, my lungs ached for days as they “got rid of the city.”
The downside is that out in a rural area, it takes longer to shop and do other city-related things.
Many quintas are rented out for parties, especially on weekends. One such example, about a kilometer away from my home, often fires off impressive fireworks displays in the evening, which is fun to watch. But the banda or ranchero music floating over on the breeze is less enjoyable. And when it gets to drunken karaoke? Double glazing is a must-have.
Don’t buy a quinta if you’re insect-phobic. In our first year, all the butterfly species visiting our garden delighted us, and in July, we sat on the back patio firefly-watching. All for free!
But we do get things called pinolillos (tromboculids), which bite horribly; the occasional scorpion; and many, many spiders. I’ve educated myself about them; they are so smart.
My favorite is the harmless Mexican bold jumping spider, with its eight eyes and green fangs. Tarantulas don’t worry us, but we are careful around the brown huntsman.
While we were in the process of looking for our home, we spent nearly six months trawling the area, visiting quinta after quinta while our buyer took forever to get his financing sorted out.
I began to categorize them:
The “failed project.” Begun but long abandoned.
The “ruined castle.” In such a rotted state that only a bulldozer could improve it.
The “hideout.” Miles from anywhere, with its Olympic swimming pool, pack of attack dogs and gun towers.
The “structural nightmare.” Built in the wrong place, facing the wrong direction, with a crumbling above-ground pool.
The stone cottage — the one that got away.
One from the last category left me with a peculiar form of OCD. We found a 1,600-meter quinta in a gated zone. Rather nice, in a posh colonia (neighborhood), but it was an obra blanca (a house still in the final stage of construction).
Another minus point was the sunken lounge. Far worse were the 16 structural support columns. All bulged, two feet above ground.
Finally, there was the house that got away: a stone cottage with walls about two feet thick. It had a rustic charm, though at 1,600 meters it was smaller than we wanted. Nor was the second bedroom a proper bedroom, but it was the best we’d found, so we offered a 10% deposit.
Two months later, our buyer finally got his loan. Strangely, the seller hadn’t yet cashed our deposit check. We said we wanted to close, but then the seller said he’d received a better offer.
I strongly doubted it, but we increased ours. Then the seller said he’d decided to sell to “a friend” and withdrew the sale. Since the seller now lived in the United States and the place had been on the market for years, I assumed he had viewed the sale in dollar terms and decided not to take the financial hit due to the changed currency exchange rate.
So we were house hunting again, angry at being strung along and desperate, a terrible combination.
Two weeks later, with our buyer nagging us every day, one of the realtors called us to say that a couple of new properties had come onto the market. We rushed to see them. The first was in the “failed project” category and quite nasty.
We drove to the second feeling gloomy, only to discover a possible option. It was the size we wanted. It had two bedrooms. It also came with the bonus of a substantial two-car garage and attached store. It belonged to a property company that had bought the whole 5,000-meter lot. Two of their workers lived in it with their families.
At first, I thought the house was made of block. These were not the regular size, nor made of cement. The house has a reinforced concrete post-and-beam skeleton with stucco-finished adobe block walls (non-load bearing). The front is an unusual cavity wall built of brick.
Inside, we found a typical country style with red terracotta floor tiles and, to our surprise, a boveda roof.
This house was a million pesos cheaper, had 400 meters more land and came with useful outbuildings. We’d have enough cash left over to completely redesign. One of the garages could be converted into a loft.
Our offer was accepted! We rushed to close, in the middle of the pandemic, with government services limited.
So what’s my advice? Visit as many potential places as possible. At each, try to place a rough value on the building(s), subtract that from the total, divide by the lot size. The result is your cost per square meter.
Price depends on proximity to major roads — but you don’t want to be too close (traffic noise). The worst value will be next to a golf club. Developers buy land very cheaply, flatten it, fence and gate it, build the roads, make a golf club and then sell little houses made cheaply for huge prices because of the club. Don’t waste your money.
Currently, we’re into our second year of quinta ownership: renovating the irrigation system, landscaping, and building a new pool.
Are we over budget? Of course we are!
Clive Warner is a retired British engineer and teacher who moved from the United Kingdom to Monterrey, Mexico, in 1990 with his Mexican wife, Sandra, after their computer business failed. After working in the cement and plastics industries, Clive became a teacher with the St. Patrick’s School in Monterrey. He has written four novels, a book about heart surgery, and a memoir. After selling their house in Monterrey a year ago, he and Sandra bought a “fixer-upper” quinta in Santiago and are still busy renovating it.
President López Obrador will not attend a ceremony in the Senate to present the upper house’s highest award to a nonagenarian ruling party senator because he wants to avoid a protest against him.
The president said Monday he won’t attend Thursday’s presentation of the Belisario Domínguez medal to Morena party Senator Ifigenía Martínez – a noted politician, economist and academic – because Senator Lilly Téllez of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) has called on other lawmakers to “disrespect” him at the event.
Téllez, who left Morena to join the PAN last year, called for López Obrador to be “confronted” at the ceremony.
“The serial rapist of the constitution, President López Obrador, will come to the Senate next week,” she wrote in a Twitter post last Friday. “Confronting him is necessary.”
At his regular news conference on Monday, López Obrador said he was very happy that Martínez would receive the Belisario Domínguez medal, adding that he sent her a letter to congratulate her and inform her that he wouldn’t be presenting the award to her.
“I have the duty to inform you that I won’t be present at the ceremony because a legislator from the conservative bloc is calling for me to be disrespected,” he told the 91-year-old senator.
The president told reporters that Téllez has the right to express herself and protest but he has a responsibility to protect the prestige of the position he holds.
“I’m not going to go in order to be disrespected and … [to face] a scandal,” López Obrador said.
Interior Minister Adán Augusto López Hernández will represent the president at the ceremony.
Members of the Arizona volunteer group Battalion Search and Rescue aid a migrant they found near death in the desert. Photos courtesy of Battalion Search and Rescue
On Saturday morning, our group, Battalion Search and Rescue, gathered at a small market in southern Arizona. Our mission for the day was that of a “general search” in an extremely remote area of the Sonoran desert. The search area bordered the Tohono O’Odham Nation, which has seen a massive increase in migrant traffic.
Battalion Search and Rescue is a self-trained group of unpaid volunteers from a wide range of backgrounds that searches the desert on average twice a month, looking for lost and missing migrants. Our mission is to save lives and/or provide closure for families and loved ones of people who have been lost while crossing into the United States. We regularly receive search requests from migrants’ families. We coordinate with park rangers, military, Border Patrol, reservations, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and local law enforcement.
The battalion has located over 20 human remains in the last 12 months, but today, things would go differently.
On this day, our group consisted of a dozen residents of Arizona, many from small towns like Nogales and Patagonia. At 7 a.m., we exchanged fist bumps, parked sedans and loaded into a variety of 4×4 vehicles to begin our journey.
After driving more than an hour off-road, we reached a remote desert location and quickly prepared by loading packs with fluids, snacks and medical supplies. The battalion members all wear rugged footwear, high-visibility hats and carry at least one trekking pole. Snakes are always a hazard, as well as scorpions and a wide variety of spiky desert plant life.
The young man was left behind in the desert by his group because he had foot blisters and other injuries.
After forming a search line and confirming everyone’s readiness, the volunteers headed out, our two-way radios buzzing with a range of chatter. To keep our spirits up, there was, as always, a healthy dose of good-natured ribbing.
A new volunteer held down the left flank today. Terry Stanford and two of her good friends were new to the battalion and considering making a commitment as long-term volunteers. Their decision would soon be solidified.
“There is someone here!” she suddenly announced.
Another volunteer warrior, as the group likes to call their members, instructed them to wait for backup and approach slowly. Their discovery was a barely 19-year-old youth from Central America who had dragged himself over a mile to the shade of a small tree, where he had remained for several days and was now clinging to life.
In a soft and cracking voice, he explained how he was left behind by his group due to blisters and other injuries. He had been robbed of his possessions except for his cell phone, which was similarly clinging to life, showing only 2% battery life on its sun-bleached screen.
Mostly without speaking, volunteers fell into their respective roles. A motivated pair were chosen to run several miles for one of the vehicles with more water and supplies. Others combed the surrounding area, while those with medical training attended to the young man’s wounds and other needs.
The terrain near the border is challenging and temperatures can vary from freezing to 120 F.
A few battalion members with law experience discussed the legal concerns regarding attending to and potentially transporting the young man. After a failed attempt to contact Border Patrol due to a lack of cell phone service in this remote part of the desert, the decision was made to transport him ourselves.
The drive out of the desert was slow and painful for the young man, but he successfully arrived at an emergency room near Tucson. With his phone partially charged during the drive, he tearfully reached worried family thousands of miles away.
He spoke to us of only making a few dollars a day back home and yet still being extorted by criminal gangs. His plan was to somehow get to Kentucky, where he possibly had family, work and “a new future” waiting.
After getting this young man the help he needed, the battalion utilized a network of contacts and alerted nearby shelters like the Kino Border Initiative Migrant Outreach Center — which is located just across the border from Nogales, Arizona, in Nogales, Sonora — to be on the lookout for him. They will carefully monitor his movements and progress.
Extreme conditions in the Arizona desert can range from freezing weather to 120 F temperatures, and the terrain is often rough and rugged. Our group’s searches locate an average of two human remains every month; they can range from skeletal to a few hours old. The sooner these remains are found, the better the chance for identification, repatriation and proper burial.
We are the Battalion Search and Rescue.
And we search for the lost but not forgotten.
James R. Holeman is the founder of Battalion Search and Rescue. For more information on the organization, visit their website or reach them by email at [email protected].
'There is a state of war, of terrorism, in Michoacán,' says Gregorio López, an Apatzingán-based priest who operates shelters for displaced people.
More than 22,000 people have fled violence in Michoacán since President López Obrador took office in late 2018, according to an activist Catholic priest.
“The Tierra Caliente of Michoacán is the territory of cartels and terrorism,” said Gregorio López, an Apatzingán-based priest and founder of El Buen Samaritano (The Good Samaritan), a civil society organization that operates shelters for displaced people.
“… They use drones to throw bombs at the civilian population, they kidnap the poorest people, … the sicarios [cartel hitmen] murder, kidnap and rape,” he told the newspaper El Universal.
“In the three years of the López Obrador government, more than 22,000 residents have fled that area [Tierra Caliente]; half of them sought asylum in the United States,” said the priest widely known as Padre Goyo.
“… Half of them already crossed into the United States, and some others are waiting in cities such as Tijuana while their asylum paperwork [is processed],” he clarified.
One of those displaced persons is a woman El Universal identified only as Lupita. Her husband was killed, one of her sons was abducted and she was raped before members of a cartel that operates in Coalcomán – a Tierra Caliente municipality — arrived at her ranch in June. They threatened to kill her and her other three children if she didn’t leave within three hours, El Universal said.
Lupita fled to Aguililla – another Tierra Caliente municipality plagued by the violence generated by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Cárteles Unidos – leaving behind her home, belongings, car, cattle and farm machinery. From Aguililla she traveled to Tijuana, Baja California, where the group Dreamers Moms and other organizations helped her seek asylum in the United States, where she now lives.
The organization López founded has also helped displaced michoacanos seek asylum in the U.S., providing them with letters of recommendation and other documents to strengthen their cases.
The priest told El Universal that Michoacán is a “state without law” apart from that established by organized crime. The federal and state government abandoned thousands of residents who were forced to flee to northern border cities or the United States, he said.
“There is a state of war, of terrorism, in Michoacán. That’s the way United States authorities are considering several municipalities such as Coalcomán and Aguililla,” López said.
“The Biden administration is documenting the violence – the massacres that are occurring in the face of the passivity and complicity of the Mexican government and the Michoacán government,” he said.
A CJNG sicario.
One community that has become a virtual ghost town due to the large number of residents who have left is El Aguaje, where the CJNG paraded a “narco-tank” through the streets earlier this year.
Some 2,300 people formerly lived in the town, but the current population doesn’t exceed 200 because most residents have fled to Mexico’s north or the United States, López said.
Large numbers of people have also fled communities such as Barranca Seca in Coalcomán and El Cajón in Apatzingán, he said.
“In a single week, 3,500 people were displaced from the municipality of Tepalcatepec due to violence in that area of Tierra Caliente. Communities such as Las Truchas, Colomos, El Bejuco and San Isidro … were practically abandoned out of fear of the cartels that operate there,” López added.
“This is no longer a war between cartels or against the population. It’s well-systematized terrorism in Tierra Caliente,” he said.
“… There is no presence of the National Guard. The discourse of [President López Obrador’s] morning press conferences is a complete lie here. That ‘hugs, not bullets’ [security strategy] is nonsense,” the priest said, referring to the government’s strategy of addressing the root causes of violence with social programs rather than confronting cartels with force.
“It’s a lack of respect for the families who have suffered massacres and rapes. President López Obrador should come here and hug a sicario and a criminal who’s dropping bombs with drones. It’s an insult.”
The priest also took aim at Silvano Aureoles, who finished his six-year term as governor of Michoacán last Saturday.
“The biggest criminal of this state is Silvano Aureoles; he sold himself to a cartel. There have never been so many missing persons in this state as there were in [his] government. The name of the most powerful criminal boss Michoacán has had is Silvano Aueroles.”
Cuban players at a game in Ciudad Obregón in August.
At least 11 members of the U-23 Cuban baseball team defected in Mexico before, during and after the World Cup in Sonora.
According to varying reports, 11 or 12 of 24 players abandoned the team, which finished fourth at the September 23-October 2 event held in Hermosillo and Ciudad Obregón.
It is one of Cuba’s largest defections in recent years and seen as a great embarrassment for the island nation. Mass defections of Cuban athletes were common during the 1990s when Cuba was in a so-called “special period” following the collapse of the Soviet Union but have been less frequent in more recent years.
Cuba’s National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) excoriated the defectors, asserting they have “weak morals and ethics.”
“Is it so difficult to learn, from the cradle, that one doesn’t pursue dreams or personal projects by putting universal values such as commitment, responsibility and patriotism to one side?” INDER asked in its official magazine.
Cuban officials apportioned blame to the United States, noting that the U.S. has restrictions that force Cuban baseball players to defect in order to qualify to play in the major leagues. At least one young Cuban ballplayer, Luía Mejías, has already entered the United States, according to media reports.
Players who remain in Mexico could also seek asylum in the United States to pursue a professional baseball career. Their teammates who remain loyal to their homeland left Mexico on Monday.
Mayor Taboada of Benito Juárez offers defense of conservative citizens to counter president's criticisms.
The mayor of a Mexico City borough has defended the residents of one neighborhood he represents after President López Obrador declared that conservatism flourishes there.
Speaking at his regular news conference on Monday, López Obrador asserted that “there is more conservative thought in Colonia Del Valle than in Las Lomas.”
Del Valle is a middle class neighborhood on Mexico City’s south side while Las Lomas is an affluent district in the capital’s west side.
“[Conservative thought] is not exclusive to … [former president Felipe] Calderón … or [former president Vicente] Fox … or any other person. It’s not just them, there are millions who think like that in our country. … It’s a way of thinking and being, it’s conservatism … and they’re not a small group, there are 10 or 20 million of them. Conservative thought has always existed,” López Obrador said.
The president said that people who are conservative – a word he frequently uses to deride his critics – follow a “doctrine of hypocrisy” and are “not necessarily the richest” citizens of Mexico.
There is also conservatism in “sectors of the aspirational middle class,” he said before citing residents of Del Valle as an example.
Although there are millions of conservatives, the majority of Mexicans don’t agree with conservative thought, the president added, declaring that such thought is a synonym of selfishness, individualism, corruption, classism and racism.
In response to the president’s remarks, the mayor of Benito Juárez, the borough in which Del Valle is located, posted a video message to Twitter filmed in the neighborhood in question.
“Mr. President, don’t be mistaken, this neighborhood, like many in Mexico City, is aspirational and [the residents] are aspirational; they aspire to have better urban services, greater security, better work, better schools and quality health care. That’s legitimate aspiration and as a government we’re obliged to provide it,” said Santiago Taboada, who represents the conservative National Action Party.
He said that Del Valle residents enjoy “enviable” levels of human development – a remark supported by a United Nations report that found that Benito Juárez has higher levels of development than Switzerland – and that all Mexicans have the right to enjoy a similar quality of life.
Del Valle residents are “organized, informed and demand from authorities the quality of life to which they are entitled,” Taboada said.
“They’re also very critical of poor government decisions and they’ve always expressed that, [including] at every election. But above all Del Valle is a neighborhood of hard-working people. If getting up early every day to work to pay the rent, school fees or the market makes them conservative then I wish the country had more people like that,” he said.
“Mr. President, what really characterizes Colonia Del Valle is the generosity of its residents and never the selfishness you talk about,” the mayor said, citing humanitarian aid they provided for victims of Hurricane Grace and a powerful earthquake that struck the capital in 2017.
The coronavirus stoplight map that took effect on Monday.
Medium risk yellow is the dominant color on the federal government’s new coronavirus stoplight map, which took effect Monday.
There are 22 yellow states, nine low risk green states and just one high risk orange one – Baja California.
The biggest changes on the current map compared to that in effect for the past two weeks are the increase in the number of green states from four to nine and the decrease in the number of orange states from four to one. The number of yellow states declined from 24 to 22, while the number of maximum risk red states remains at zero.
The map reflects the improved coronavirus situation in Mexico after the third wave of the pandemic peaked in August. Reported case numbers declined 38% in September compared to August, although deaths decreased by just 1.3%.
Yellow states are:
Aguascalientes
Campeche
Coahuila
Colima
Guanajuato
Hidalgo
Jalisco
Mexico City
México state
Michoacán
Morelos
Nayarit
Nuevo León
Puebla
Querétaro
San Luis Potosí
Sonora
Tabasco
Tamaulipas
Tlaxcala
Veracruz
Yucatán
Painted green on the new map are:
Baja California Sur
Chiapas
Chihuahua
Durango
Guerrero
Oaxaca
Quintana Roo
Sinaloa
Zacatecas
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry reported 2,282 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday and 301 additional COVID-19 deaths.
Mexico’s accumulated case tally stands at 3.68 million while the official death toll is 279,104. There are 46,748 estimated active cases, a 25% decline compared to Friday.
Tabasco has the highest number of active cases on a per capita basis with about 130 per 100,000 people. Mexico City ranks second followed by Colima, Yucatán and Guanajuato.
More than 102.6 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to the most recent data. The Health Ministry said Sunday that 72% of the adult population has had at least one shot.
