Mexico City residents say their faith in God has strengthened through the Covid-19 pandemic, while their confidence in the government has declined, according to an El Financiero-Bloomberg survey.
Forty-eight percent of respondents confirmed their trust in the divine had grown and just 16% said that their confidence in government had increased.
Forty-four percent said that they had less faith in government than they did before the pandemic.
Faith in God and confidence in science showed themselves not to be mutually exclusive: alongside increased trust in God, 36% of respondents signaled more trust in science. Faith in the common man also grew: 16% said they trust people more.
Meanwhile, the pandemic has been a source of motivation for some of those surveyed. 53% said they had greater desire for personal improvement and 35% said they felt more motivated.
The diminishing support in Mexico City for the ruling Morena party was reflected in the June 6 elections. Despite the capital being a stronghold for the party in recent years, it lost in four of the 11 districts it governed, making Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum the first to govern with a majority of districts in opposition hands.
Sheinbaum blamed the “terrible tragedy” of the Metro collapse on May 3, which killed 26 people, while both she and the president made claims of a “dirty war” against ruling administrations both nationally and in the capital.
However, the pandemic has also hit the city hard. Mexico City has born the brunt of Covid-19 cases, recording far more than double the next worst affected state.
Voters may also have been dissuaded by the pattern of government investment, which has been focused outside of the capital. Early in the administration, President López Obrador opted to cancel the construction of the Texcoco airport, destined to serve Mexico City, which was somewhere between 20% and 30% complete; his flagship project, the Maya Train, will connect towns and cities in the south-east of the country.
Faith in God is generally expressed through Catholicism, which is the dominant religion in the country and the capital. However, it has shown a gradual decrease in followers in the two decades preceding 2020.
Protestant and evangelical faiths also grew in popularity over the same period, but remain fringe compared to Catholicism. The capital is also a historic home to the country’s small Jewish population.
The survey of 500 Mexico City residents was conducted by telephone on July 15-16. The margin of error was estimated at 4.4%.
Saturday's march against medicine shortages Saturday in Mexico City.
Thousands of parents and other relatives of children with cancer along with cancer survivors, HIV patients and others took to the streets in Mexico City on Saturday to protest once again against long-running medication shortages.
People from across Mexico participated in a march from the Angel of Independence monument on Reforma Avenue to the Alameda Central park in the capital’s downtown.
Organized around the slogan quimios sí (chemo yes), the march was the latest protest among many held during the past two years against the federal government’s failure to supply public hospitals with sufficient quantities of pediatric oncology medications as well as a range of other medicines including antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS.
“I don’t believe there is a more just cause at the moment than defending the right for people with cancer and many other diseases to have their complete medications on time. This is the most humane fight that Mexicans can have,” one protester told the EFE news agency.
“[The shortages are] real, there are no medications, not for cancer nor for other diseases. So we have to demand that the authorities [supply the medications], pressure them so they fix this problem they caused,” said Marcela Martínez, a cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease last year.
‘Chemo yes!’ read the signs of two protesters in the capital on Saturday.
“They’re populists, they promise and promise but lie and lie, and now we’re tired of the lies and the promises,” said Teresa Herrera, another protester who called on all citizens to empathize with those suffering from the drug shortages.
“I can’t believe that we put up with them taking our medicines away because a country that allows medicines to be taken away allows everything. We can’t allow it, we can’t forget it,” she said.
“We’re here supporting the fathers and mothers of children with cancer because like them, people who live with HIV haven’t had medications. Enough of them not hearing us!” Alaín Pinzón, leader of the HIV patients advocacy group VIHve Libre, told the newspaper Milenio.
The protesters blamed President López Obrador for the lack of drugs and were also highly critical of Health Minister Jorge Alcocer and Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell, who claimed last month that protests against shortages were linked to international right-wing groups with a mentality that borders on coup plotting.
The march took place just days after the government asserted that the problem – which experts say is caused by López Obrador’s overhaul of a procurement process he claimed was plagued by corruption and price gouging – had been solved as the result of an almost 77-billion-peso (US $3.85 billion) outlay on the purchase of medications via its own tendering processes and through a collaborative purchasing agreement with the the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
Speaking at his regular news conference last Tuesday, the president described his administration’s purchases as a “triumph” after reiterating his claim that medication procurement under previous governments was “a business of a thieving minority.”
But almost 87% of medications bought in collaboration with UNOPS have not been delivered to health facilities, according to data presented by the Health Ministry at the same press conference. Some 196.5 million units of medications have been purchased but only 25.8 million units – 13.1% of the total – have so far reached hospitals.
Saturday’s protest came two days after a court filed a complaint with the federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) against Health Minister Alcocer and Finance Minister Arturo Herrera for failing to comply with an injunction that ordered them to guarantee the supply of cancer medications.
A group of parents of children with cancer also recently filed a complaint against Deputy Minister López-Gatell for genocide, discrimination and negligence in relation to the long-running shortage of cancer medications.
Journalist Carlos Loret de Mola asserted earlier this month that 1,600 children with cancer have died as a result of drug shortages, although he provided scant evidence for the claim.
Enedina Bazán Chávez, left, shows a visitor to En Vía how to spin yarn. The non-profit connects new female entrepreneurs with tourists and potential customers. Allegra Zagami
One of the first things that impressed me in Mexico was the ability of people to start a business with next to nothing — a table on the street with some food or small merchandise. Granted, I have never had to do this to get by, but I also come from a culture where police now shut down kids’ lemonade stands.
When I talk about this with Mexican friends, they agree that it is a positive, but a number note that the problem often is how do you take it to the next level? In the valley of Tlacolula, Oaxaca, the microfinance non-profit En Vía (On the Way) is providing rural women with the means to do just that.
According to En Vía managing director Viviana Ruiz Boijseauneau, microfinance is a natural extension of Mexicans’ natural entrepreneurial tendency. “There is a lot of initiative in Mexico,” she said. “We provide small incentives, capital and training.”
En Vía’s work is very similar to microfinance organizations around the world, a model that was much hyped a couple of decades ago as the solution to world poverty. Although it never did turn out as promised, it can be very useful.
The trick is to adjust the model to local circumstances.
A business-oriented English class at En Vía. En Vía
Like other such organizations, En Vía focuses on giving very small business loans for start-ups to poor rural populations who lack access to banking and credit services. As in many parts of the world, people in rural Oaxaca are isolated from the mainstream economy with no credit histories and often no verifiable incomes. If a credit agency does lend to them, it is at exorbitant rates.
These microfinance organizations do more than just lend; they provide ongoing support. En Vía’s basic education program consists of eight sessions covering topics such as managing finances and setting prices. In addition, they offer more specialized classes such as textile marketing and design, computer skills, branding, diabetes prevention and worm composting.
Like many such operations, En Vía funds exclusively women clients. This is ideological.
“Our mission is to empower women to have a better quality of life — first them (the women), then their families and their communities,” says Ruiz. On En Vía’s website, it states, “It has been proven that women are more likely to put generated income toward the benefit of their family’s well-being.”
The main difference between En Vía and other microfinance organizations is its ability to take advantage of a unique regional economic opportunity: central Oaxaca’s important tourism industry.
Luring tourists outside Oaxaca city proper, En Vía promotes “responsible tourism,” which it defines as something that “… improves the well-being of the local community.” It encourages visitors to “meaningfully connect with local people, to learn about their culture and livelihoods and to allow for genuine exchange.”
The organic market La Cosecha in Oaxaca city, the business of a woman helped by En Vía. Osvaldo Barrientos
This includes tours of their clients’ businesses to let the women show visitors what they are doing. By touring the businesses, outsiders get a more “authentic view” of life in the Central Valleys than can be seen in the city.
It dovetails well with the businesses of most of the women, who are artisans and depend on tourism to have a market for their wares. On a practical level, the tours bring customers, but they also bring in funding to En Vía to cover operating expenses, helping to keep the loans interest-free.
Because of tourism, English language lessons are very popular among younger women so that they can sell to more people.
Not all of the women in the program are artisans; some open restaurants, and one even opened a hardware store.
The pandemic has hit En Vía’s artisans hard, forcing them and En Vía to look at alternatives. This has included learning to sell their products online, but perhaps more interesting has been some clients’ move to raising chickens.
Initially, En Vía began helping women raise chickens as a way to feed their families once income sources dried up. However, a number of their clients have decided that they can go beyond that, working toward commercialization of the birds, including breaking into better-paying organic production.
Emiliana Antonio Miguel from San Miguel del Valle, Oaxaca, shows a visitor on En Vía’s responsible tourism program how to make a tortilla. Stephanie Knibbe
The tours, a foreign resident population and general interest in Oaxaca’s socioeconomic situation also mean that En Vía works with a significant number of volunteers. Depending on the time of year (in normal, non-pandemic times, that is), it can vary from 25 to about 50.
They get the most volunteers during the “high seasons,” which are December to April for snowbird retirees and May to August when students are on summer break.
Ruiz says that volunteers have a unique opportunity to work meaningfully with clients in a way that has real benefit. They run tours, teach English classes and specialized workshops and do translations. Many of the tour guides and English instructors are foreign residents. En Vía has university student volunteers doing classes in business and other specialized topics.
Microfinance is not a magic bullet. The European Microfinance Platform has warned against problems with Mexican borrowers taking on multiple loans, making their ability to pay questionable. However, Ruíz boasts that En Vía has a 99.8% repayment rate. She criticizes more traditional lenders’ justification for high interest rates.
“Just because they are poor does not mean they will default. We are proof that the opposite is true. The women respond well to the mutual confidence that we encourage.”
Much of that mutual confidence comes from the fact that the women’s work gets such outside attention. It is not simply a matter of lending money to women who work in obscurity. En Vía provides a platform through which women in isolated communities can reach out beyond their world — and the world can reach out to them.
The hands of master potter Elia Mateo Martínez from San Marcos Tlapazola.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 18 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.
A man walks by a sign encouraging participation in the August referendum on investigating ex-presidents.
The messaging is everywhere in my city: En la consulta, vota sí (Vote yes on the consultation).
Sometimes it’s Juicio a expresidentes (trial for ex-presidents), with the faces of Mexico’s previous five presidents underneath, their eyes blocked out — newspaper crime section style. The hashtag for it all reads, “Trial yes, impunity no.”
Sigh.
It makes for great political theater — I’ll give them that.
And here’s how I might go for it — instead of my current response: the narrow side-eye — if the current administration weren’t, in a very literal sense, mostly talk.
The government’s upcoming referendum on August 1, in which it asks the people to vote on whether they would like to see past “political actors” (although all the accompanying advertising associated with the referendum makes it clear that we’re talking about the country’s last five presidents before the current one) investigated for corruption is good, convincing talk. But I’d like to think that most of us know better by now.
Anyone who’s lived long enough has met people like our current president: talkers both forceful and smooth, so good at promising you the moon that you sit outside every night staring at the night sky, sure that any minute now it will appear right on your lawn.
President López Obrador is the boyfriend who’s always telling you how beautiful you are, how much he loves you, that you’ll soon get married and live happily ever after in a castle … but the move-in day never arrives, and he’s very good at convincing you that the reason it doesn’t is because of someone else’s evil sabotage.
It’s a characteristic of both the current president of Mexico and the former president of my own country. The clear message to their citizens is: your suffering is not my fault — and plus, I’m a victim too!
Can’t we get someone with a the buck stops here sign on their desk who really means it for a change?
People like to complain about Gen Z (or about millennials, depending on how old the complainers are) whining and throwing tantrums when they don’t get their way, but there’s nowhere I see that attitude more than among a large handful of quite powerful and quite mature men these days.
It’s not that I’m against anyone facing justice for past wrongs; I’m all for it, in fact. But does being unenthusiastic about this particular call to action mean that I’m indifferent?
I don’t doubt that past presidents are responsible for all manner of crime — mostly “rich people” crimes of corruption like fraud and money laundering, as I explained to my sister. But why are we only talking about presidents here?
What about the lower-level leaders at the state and municipal levels too? Why are they not in the eye of the hurricane as well?
It also seems silly to potentially use our resources to “go after” people who are not actively causing damage at the same time that we’re finding it impossible to do so with people who are damaging our society every day in the present — in a very real sense.
So why do I think that this is more a silly distraction rather than a big, important revolutionary reckoning?
Oh, let me count the ways!
This administration has not shown that it cares about justice for women. Even if we set aside the president’s disparaging and dismissive remarks regarding the women’s movement, this year’s federal spending on baseball, the president’s favorite sport, has received nearly twice the allocation as programs for women.
The current government has shown little real concern about all the candidates that got killed in this year’s elections, the second most violent on record, or the fact that narcos have had such an outsized role in determining who will hold power at the local and state levels.
Speaking of narcos, do we have any kind of plan for taking back any of the one-third of the territory that they completely control?
Where is the concern for the record number of people who have fallen into poverty, and others into extreme poverty as a direct result of the pandemic in which no one received any kind of pandemic-related economic support? Talk about being on our own.
Early on, the president downplayed the coronavirus to such an extent that there are still people who think it’s fake; in retrospect, I keep wondering: did he tell everyone to keep going out in the early days because he knew that those businesses wouldn’t get another chance to earn money for a long while?
He insisted on bringing General Cienfuegos, a high-ranking military officer who’d been arrested in the United States for drug trafficking, back to stand trial in Mexico, where he was promptly released.
The president famously quips “I have different data” every time he doesn’t like the numbers with which he’s challenged — which is a lot. It’s not strange for him to contradict people in his own government, and his daily morning press conferences seem more about keeping people on his side than informing citizens about the goings-on in the country.
He regularly goes after the press, “joking” that they should serve jail time for telling “lies” about him. Thinking about this as I write this article makes me wonder: might the president think it a good idea to “let the people decide” to go after anyone at all?
The Economist and Le Monde have both recently published pieces essentially making fun of what they see as the political gimmick of proposing trials for ex-presidents. I’m sure he won’t like it; I’m sure, too, that it won’t improve his views of the press.
But the president’s most ardent supporters will likely continue to support him. It’s nice — and apparently irresistible to some — to feel that someone powerful is on your side. It’s nice for them to be able to say, “Yes, you are so right.”
But I’m not 17 anymore. I want to see results.
And from what I can tell so far, it’s mostly closed-up shops, tumbleweeds and blood around here.
Mexican classics like quesadillas lend themselves well to using marlin.
Have you ever had smoked marlin (marlin ahumado)? It’s been so much a part of “my Mexican experience” here in Mazatlán that I forget it’s not as common outside Sinaloa, where it’s recognized as a specialty.
One can easily surmise that’s because Mazatlán is such a big, thriving commercial and recreational fishing port, and has been for decades. Plus, marlin grow to be really big fish: the average size is about 11 feet, with weights of 200–400 pounds. What to do with all that marlin? Smoking it certainly makes sense.
Personally, I find fresh marlin a little too oily, but smoked it’s absolutely delicious. More firm than smoked salmon, it has a texture almost like chicken. And the smoked flavor lends itself to any number of dishes — let your imagination take the lead! My favorite fishmonger here sells smoked marlin with no added coloring, which I prefer; commonly, a bit of red dye is brushed onto the outside of the fish to give it a brighter, more attractive color. It’s not harmful and doesn’t change the flavor, so not to worry if that’s all you can find. Some vendors will claim the red color comes from the smoking process; you’ll have to be the judge.
An easy way to try smoked marlin is to sauté it with scrambled eggs, along with a little onion, bell or poblano pepper and tomato. That’s a very common breakfast here in Mazatlán. You can also make a sort of tuna salad with it, using the ingredients you regularly do but substituting smoked marlin for canned tuna. Add it to a quiche or frittata, use as a filling for fried or baked empanadas or serve it sliced with cheese and crackers, as a happy hour appetizer. Or try one of the recipes below.
Those of you not in Mazatlán may need to look in the refrigerated section at the grocery store, where you’ll find it in shrink-wrapped packages.
Serve smoked marlin salsa at your next party and grab your guests’ attention!
Marlin Paté
½ kg. smoked marlin or tuna
2-3 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
2-4 Tbsp. mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
¼ cup chopped red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tomato
1 jalapeño, seeded
Salt to taste
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Juice of 1 lime
Blend all ingredients in food processor or blender until smooth. Adjust seasonings and amount of cream cheese. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours. Serve with crackers or chips.
Salsa de Marlin Ahumado
½ -1 jalapeño, seeded and minced
¼ cup chopped onion, in tiny cubes
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tomato
1-2 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 cup smoked marlin, cut into tiny cubes
1 avocado
Fresh coriander, minced
Cube tomato and avocado. Mix all ingredients together; serve with tortilla chips.
Smoked marlin, almost as firm in texture as chicken, makes for a fresh change to your taco.
Smoked Marlin Tacos
2 garlic cloves
½ large white onion, finely chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 cup of tomato, chopped
2 cups smoked marlin, crumbled
1 Tbsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
½-1 jalapeño, minced
20 taco tortillas (small)
1 cup prepared pico de gallo
1 avocado, chopped into small cubes
Sauté garlic and onion in oil. When they begin to brown, add tomato, jalapeño and marlin, then salt, pepper, cumin and oregano. Continue cooking for a few minutes. Heat tortillas. Mix pico de gallo with avocado. Fill tacos with marlin mixture, top with salsa and serve.
Cut carrots, celery, marlin into tiny cubes. Cut beans into tiny pieces. In a pot of boiling water, parboil veggies separately (using a slotted spoon to remove them from water) until crisp-cooked; set aside.
In a blender or food processor, mix tomato puree, 1 liter of water, oregano and bay leaves. Heat olive oil in a big soup pot; sauté onion and garlic, then add tomato mixture and remaining water. Bring to a boil, lower heat and then stir in veggies and marlin, adding more water if needed. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour in jalapeños and vinegar liquid from the can. Add olives if using. Bring to a boil, simmer 20 minutes and serve topped with garnishes and with warm corn tortillas.
Have you ever tried this alternative to salmon and tuna? What did you think? What recipes have you tried?
A mañanera moment: Defense Minister Sandoval enjoys a good laugh during Tuesday's conference.
President López Obrador, or AMLO as he is commonly known, is a man of faith. During his first presidential run, there were reports that he was a Protestant. In a later television interview, he self-identified as a Roman Catholic.
However, he has since refused to commit to any individual church, and instead promoted the religious moral ethic. “When I am asked what religion I adhere to, I say that I am a Christian, in the broadest sense of the word, because Christ is love and justice is love,” he said.
Here’s a rundown of what the premier from Tepetitán, Tabasco, said at the morning conferences this week.
Monday
It was sunshine and margaritas for the president on Monday: the conference was broadcast from Acapulco, Guerrero, where he confirmed that federal resources would continue to be funneled to three states with high poverty: Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Governor Héctor Antonio Astudillo Flores expressed his gratitude for the four-day visit, and highlighted a drop in crime in the historically violent state.
A local journalist opened with an impassioned appeal. “Explain the murders and forced disappearances of journalists … among them is my brother … it is a daily torture … all of those who know disappeared people live an indeterminable torture … when they took him they took my heart, they took my will to live,” she said.
“There are many journalists in Mexico, as is your case, who are constantly on the side of the people, making denouncements about injustices that are committed. Everyone deserves protection, but, I repeat, more so, those who are exposed for carrying out such journalism. That is our commitment,” the president affirmed.
A national journalist returned matters to the political and suggested that the constitution was “neoliberal” in its makeup: 65% of the 763 amendments were made in the neoliberal period, she said, and only around 2% by the current administration.
The president replied that quality trumped quantity: corruption, unlike before, had been made a serious crime, he said. The Tabascan then reconfirmed the remaining three amendments on his list: strengthen the Federal Electricity Commission, expand the National Guard and reconfigure, although not necessarily replace, the National Electoral Institute (INE).
Financial investigator Santiago Nieto outlines details of the Pegasus spyware investigation.
Tuesday
Felicitations kicked off proceedings on Tuesday. The president congratulated Pedro Castillo Terrones, a rural teacher turned political novice who had been confirmed president of Peru after a dramatic election.
The usual suspects patiently waited their turn for the health update. Jorge Alcocer Varela said the government had saved almost 19 billion pesos (about US $940 million) by seeking new suppliers for medications. Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell told the young to get vaccinated, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard talked about the vaccines coming in; Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval detailed them going out.
A journalist forced López-Gatell back out of his chair. There would be no “total closures” of public spaces, he confirmed, despite the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. “We have a tired society, fatigued from having these long months of the epidemic,” he said, adding that the government’s open borders policy wouldn’t change either.
The president raised the topic of state spying later in the conference. An investigation exposing the use of Pegasus spyware had revealed that people in his circle were spied on by the previous administration. “They spied on me … but now it is known that they also spied on my wife, my children, well, even the doctor who treats me, the cardiologist.”
“Fifty from your inner circle, president,” an aid interjected.
Wednesday
Security took center stage on Wednesday. Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodríguez relayed figures for the the first six months of the year. Electoral crime rose 320% in annual terms, due to the June 6 election; six states covered over 50% of homicide; femicide was up 3.3% and, in news which has not been widely reported, rape was up 32%.
The fake news patrol followed and two articles were highlighted. A claim that the government was withholding vaccines was confirmed as untrue, and another that alleged that the San Luís Potosí government had rejected the creation of a Natural Protected Area was directed to the trash.
The head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Santiago Nieto, joined the conference to address the spying scandal: US $300 million was spent 2012 and 2018 to purchase spyware from the Israeli company NSO group, he said.
In a plea for public transparency, a political foe of the United States gained AMLO’s backing. “Assange should be freed, because he is in prison unjustly,” he said, referring to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, who is fighting extradition to the U.S. from London.
‘I have delivered 98 of 100 promises,’ the president assured reporters on Thursday.
Thursday
“When I took power on the 1st of December 2018, I made 100 promises to the people. I’ve delivered 98, I’m still missing two,” AMLO said early on Thursday, adding that number 99 would be the decentralization of federal government bodies.
“The Energy Ministry is done, it’s in Villahermosa, Segalmex [the nutrition agency] is in Zacatecas … The Wellbeing Ministry needs to be in Oaxaca, and the Education Ministry needs to be in Puebla, Tourism in Chetumal, Quintana Roo … Health is going to be in Guerrero … Agriculture will move to Ciudad Obregón, Sonora … Pemex needs to go to Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche,” he explained.
It took another journalist to point out the president had forgotten to mention the second unfulfilled promise. He replied with number 100: to find the 43 students who disappeared in 2014 in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.
The August 1 vote on whether former presidents should be investigated was just 10 days away, and AMLO took the opportunity to ridicule a foe in the media: journalist León Krauze. He had written that the August 1 vote was a “dictatorship by referendum.”
“Look at the absurdity,” retorted AMLO, “it’s a contradiction, dictatorship cannot be by referendum … the problem is Krauze doesn’t know about politics and doesn’t know about political science.”
A journalist mentioned another leak. In Spain, alleged dodgy dealings involving Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez had implicated politicians from the Felipe Calderón administration.
Friday
The president lined up the questions at the week’s final mañanera: “Let’s open for questions and answers. The two there, you two, and then the two behind, and then we’ll go with the fourth there.”
Heavy rains were hitting communities hard, one journalist put forward.
Divinity, AMLO replied, was on the administration’s side. “We are being advised where there is going to be heavy rain … Laura Velázquez [head of Civil Protection] … is our Tláloc,” he said, referencing the Aztec God of Rain.
Nine days before the August 1 vote, AMLO chastised the INE for the treatment of Morena candidates compared to those of other parties. “[The INE] are not authentic democrats … I really don’t trust those decisions, but they have to be respected,” he said.
It was to be a busy weekend ahead for the Tabascan premier. After the conference it was off to Tlaxcala to visit an agricultural program and back to Chapultepec Castle on Saturday for an event to commemorate 19th century Venezuelan revolutionary Simon Bolívar, with attendees from other Latin American nations. Then, off to Veracruz until Monday.
Masked pedestrians in Mexico City, where no new restrictions will be implemented despite rising case numbers.
Mexico City and México state will switch to high risk orange on the coronavirus stoplight map on Monday as the third wave of the pandemic continues to worsen.
Mexico City official Eduardo Clark said Friday that the capital will remain at the high risk level until at least August 1. México state Governor Alfredo del Mazo said that state will also be orange next week.
The two neighboring entities are among 13 states painted orange on the new federal stoplight map, published late on Friday afternoon. The other 11 orange states are Baja California Sur, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Veracruz, Hidalgo, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Quintana Roo.
There is one maximum risk red state – Sinaloa – and 15 are medium risk yellow: Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Querétaro, Michoacán, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Morelos, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán.
There are just three low risk green light states, a reduction of 16 compared to the previous map. They are Coahuila, Aguascalientes and Chiapas.
The coronavirus stoplight map is showing a lot less green than the last one.
The new map will take effect Monday and remain in force until August 8, although states have the authority to set their own risk levels and coronavirus restrictions.
Mexico City remains the country’s coronavirus epicenter with approximately one third of the estimated active cases located there. The Health Ministry said Friday there are almost 108,000 estimated active cases, a sharp increase from just under 93,000 two days ago.
There are almost 3,400 hospitalized Covid patients in the metropolitan area of Mexico City, an increase of more than 800 compared to a week ago. Most recent cases in the capital are among young people, the majority of whom are not vaccinated.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said that stricter restrictions won’t be imposed despite the shift to orange. But Del Mazo said that capacity levels at businesses will be reduced to 50% of normal levels in México state.
Many other parts of Mexico have also recently seen a steep rise in case numbers. Two of Mexico’s most popular beach destinations – Cancún and Los Cabos – have recorded surges.
According to the Bloomberg news agency, cases in Cancún have soared to a point where the Hard Rock hotel has allocated two floors for guests with symptoms of Covid-19.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Authorities in Baja California Sur, home to Los Cabos, are scrambling to add beds to hospitals to accommodate a growing number of patients.
Driven by widespread circulation of the highly contagious Delta variant, coronavirus case numbers have risen sharply this week.
The Health Ministry reported more than 16,000 new cases on Friday for a second consecutive day, more than 15,000 on Wednesday and almost 14,000 on Tuesday. The real number of new cases is likely much higher as the testing rate in Mexico remains low compared to many countries.
The accumulated case tally now stands at 2.72 million while the official Covid-19 death toll – also considered a vast undercount – is 237,954 with 328 additional fatalities reported on Friday. Deaths during the current wave of the virus have not reached the levels seen in the first two waves as the majority of older, more vulnerable Mexicans are vaccinated.
Nevertheless, health authorities reported 4,907 fatalities in the first 23 days of this month for an average of 213 pandemic deaths per day.
More than 58.2 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico since the national vaccination campaign began seven months ago, including a new record of 1.37 million on Thursday. More than 40% of the adult population has received at least one shot but most people in their 40s and 30s are still not fully vaccinated and most of those aged 29 and below – with the exception of residents of some northern border cities – have not yet had the opportunity to get a shot.
However, vaccination of people in the 18-29 age bracket will begin in Mexico City next week. Registration on the government’s vaccination website is open to all people above 18 no matter which part of the country they live in.
Governor-elect García and his influencer wife, Mariana Rodríguez.
The National Electoral Institute (INE) has fined the Citizens Movement (MC) party 55 million pesos (US $2.7 million) after ruling that its gubernatorial candidate in Nuevo León received prohibited social media support from his influencer wife.
The INE general council determined that social media posts by Mariana Rodríguez in support of Samuel García, who won the June 6 election, were worth 27.8 million pesos.
However, García didn’t pay Rodríguez for the posts, most of which were made on Instagram, and didn’t report the “donation in kind” to electoral authorities.
Rodríguez’s posts, which included some 1,300 Instagram stories and 45 photographs during the campaign period, “are a donation in kind in that they gave publicity to her husband’s candidacy,” INE chief Lorenzo Córdova said Thursday.
“That should have been considered what it was, a campaign donation, and it wasn’t reported,” he said.
“… Of course she can participate and appear [in her husband’s campaign], what she can’t do is use her income source [social media] … in a campaign,” Córdova said.
The INE said that Rodríguez’s social media accounts constitute a business and business people are prohibited from making donations in kind.
MC said it would appeal the fine, whose size is double the estimated value of the publicity provided by Rodríguez. She and García, a 33-year-old former federal senator, were fined just under 449,000 pesos (US $22,400) for breaching election rules.
“We will not allow the legitimate and convincing win of Samuel García in Nuevo León to be tarnished,” MC said in a statement.
“Citizens Movement will contest INE’s resolution before the TEPJF [the Federal Electoral Tribunal].”
The party noted that the TEPJF ruled in García’s favor after his then-girlfriend supported him on social media in the lead-up to the 2018 election, which he contested as a candidate for senator.
The candidate and his wife in a photo on her Instagram page.
“It established that [Rodríguez’s posts] were publications protected by freedom of speech that didn’t constitute irregularities … nor an expense that must be reported,” MC said.
The couple slammed the INE’s actions, claiming that the electoral body was objectifying Rodríguez, who has 1.8 million Instagram followers, by putting a price on her support for her husband. Two INE councilors agreed with that assessment but eight voted in favor of imposing the fines and just three voted against.
“… This seems to me very offensive that they want to put a price on me,” Rodríguez said in a video. She also said she had filed a sexual discrimination complaint with the National Human Rights Commission.
“We women are not accessories. We are not a product or merchandise with a sticker price. The support I gave to my husband is not a ‘donation in kind’,” she wrote on Instagram.
“We women should not be forced by the INE or anyone else to chose between freely exercising our profession or participating with our spouses. … I demand respect for women from all relevant authorities, we mustn’t be treated as objects with value. What is happening today is called political gender violence.”
García, who will succeed Jaime Rodríguez as governor of Nuevo León in October, highlighted that the fine imposed on his party is higher than that of US $2 million handed to the Green Party, which broke election rules by paying social media influencers to support it.
President López Obrador, who has had his own run-ins with the INE, weighed in on the issue on Friday, asserting that the electoral authority had overstepped the mark.
“… It’s the most normal thing for a … wife to speak well of her husband; if she’s going to charge him or not, that’s another matter,” he said.
“I see this as more politicking [on behalf of the INE], … I wouldn’t say [playing] politics, politics is a noble trade. We have to see who’s carrying out these maneuvers,” López Obrador said.
“… That’s why we have to renew the INE and the [electoral] tribunal, so there is seriousness [in the consideration of electoral matters] …”
Only the smallest of vehicles can make it through the eight tunnels to San Pedro Analco, Jalisco, without leaving some paint on the wall.
The classic version of a camino de montaña, or mountain road, in Mexico inevitably features a 1,000-meter drop on one side and a sheer vertical wall on the other, all too often topped by delicately balanced rocks, each weighing tons and just daring you to pass beneath them.
The danger factor is then compounded a hundredfold if the road is only wide enough for one car to pass, and another hundredfold if the surface of that road is not asfalto (asphalt) or empedrado (cobblestone) but brecha (dirt) or — God help you — lodo (mud).
I was introduced to one of these unforgettable roads some years ago when a friend suggested we go visit a tiny, once incredibly prosperous mining town called San Pedro Analco in Jalisco.
As I had never heard of this place, I sought it out on a road map and found it right smack in the middle of Jalisco in what looked like the most desolate spot in the state. Its nearest neighbor was another isolated town with the nearly unpronounceable name of Hostotipaquillo.
“Why do you want to go to San Pedro Analco?” I asked my friend, who also happened to be named Pedro.
Landslides like this one are common along the steep road to San Pedro Analco.
“Well, I visited it years ago by helicopter and before I left, I said to myself — using the words of General MacArthur — ‘I shall return,’” he said. “So, you see, I have to go back there.”
“Obviously,” I said, and soon Pedro was at my door with two other friends.
Off we drove to Hostotipaquillo, located 80 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara and famed for its gold mines. Here we asked a local man how to get to San Pedro Analco.
“Tienes doble tracción, verdad?” [You have four-wheel drive, right?”] he asked, eyeing Pedro’s Cherokee.
“No, amigo,” replied Pedro, “but this vehicle, in the hands of a skillful driver …”
“Then you will never make it to San Pedro,” interrupted our informant, who went on to describe the impossibly steep slope, the slippery dirt road, the frequent landslides, etc.
Part of the road to San Pedro Analco is carved in a sheer rock wall.
Of course, this lugubrious description of things only bolstered Pedro’s determination even more.
“Oh, la gente local always claim their brechas [dirt roads] are death traps,” commented Pedro. “Let’s go take a look.”
We drove out of Hostotipaquillo, skirted a charming little lake and suddenly found ourselves on the edge of a humongous canyon, deep and scary. At that moment, along came a truck.
“How far to San Pedro?” we asked.
“Oh, 20 minutos … but you’ll need doble tracción.”
We started down the narrow track, barely wide enough for one vehicle.
This car is turning around on a narrow road with a 100-meter drop on one side.
On our right was a drop so deep, it made all of us suck in our breath. On our left was the canyon wall, covered with huge rocks precariously perched above us.
Down we drove, and the pitch of the road grew steeper and steeper, the turns tighter and tighter, until suddenly, after we had descended for a full hour, we spotted the Santiago River far, far below us.
“Twenty minutes to San Pedro, my foot,” I exclaimed. “We’re not even halfway down the canyon, and then we have to go all the way back up the other side!”
Pedro said nothing. During the next few minutes, nobody else spoke a word as the road grew even steeper and the wheels began to slip a bit on the loose gravel. High above us, the sun disappeared behind a huge black cloud.
Silence weighed upon the car as we inched down the road, now shrouded in gloom. Miraculously, there happened to be a rare wide space just before the next turn. Pedro eased the Cherokee into it.
“Hmm, maybe we should take a look at what’s around the bend,” he suggested.
Exploring the narrow cobblestone streets of the old mining town.
Well, one look told us that our nearly vertical road was about to get a whole lot steeper. But Pedro later admitted he had already decided to turn back.
“The moment I heard that dreadful silence, I knew all of you thought we were doomed,” he confided.
Back up at the top, we told a ranchero about our adventure.
“Gracias aDios you turned around when you did,” he said. “You would never have gotten your car out of that barranca [ravine].”
Well, I thought I would never again have to peer over the edge of what I was now calling Jalisco’s scariest canyon but, alas, I hadn’t calculated on Pedro’s determination.
“Guess what, John! I just traded in my station wagon for the toughest 4WD on the market. Now we can finally go to San Pedro Analco. What are you doing tomorrow?”
At 880 meters altitude, San Pedro Analco is nestled among craggy peaks.
I could have replied in the immortal words of old-time radio personality Chester Riley: “What a revoltin’ development this is!” But it was no use; adventure was calling and I had to go, even though I wondered whether I would ever come back.
The next day, we were joined by a friend, and off we drove to Hostotipaquillo.
Half an hour later, we were on the edge of that same tremendous barranca overlooking the Santiago River. The road was as narrow and twisting as ever, but having traction on all four wheels was comforting and very useful every time we met someone coming up the other way.
The Law of Mountain Roads said it was up to us, in the descending vehicle, to back up and find a place where the other car could pass. Believe me, such spots are few and far between on the royal road to San Pedro, but each time this happened, I reminded myself that I wasn’t expecting to survive this trip anyhow, so why worry?
Countless curves later, we bottomed the canyon and crossed the bridge, watching flocks of cormorants swooping over the frothing rapids.
Now we began climbing the canyon on the opposite side and, of course, immediately ran into somebody coming down the one-lane road. This time, he was obliged to do the backing up.
Motorcyclists negotiate the muddy road through eight tunnels. Seoz Bikes
During this maneuver, we asked how far it was to San Pedro.
“Oh, it’s not too far,” said the driver, but you’ll never get that Jeep of yours through the eight tunnels.”
Eight tunnels? Nobody had mentioned any tunnels up until now, perhaps figuring we’d never get this far anyhow.
In no time, we reached the first tunnel and breezed right through it. The second was smaller and longer, and we squeezed through with only inches to spare.
In the third tunnel, those inches were reduced to millimeters and as a result, a few paint scrapings from Pedro’s brand-new Toyota now decorate the tunnel wall.
After just barely making it through, Pedro broached the subject of parking and continuing on foot.
This new bridge over the Santiago River is Mexico’s tallest reservoir bridge.
“Walk?” I cried. “That could take all day since we don’t know where the town is — and besides, there’s no place here for you to turn around.”
Oh, so true. It looked like the bottomless abyss straight down from the edge of the so-called road, so we rolled on for another 600 meters and came face-to-face with tunnel four, through which the car would never pass.
Fortunately, not too far back, there was a “wide spot” which was wide only in the most relative manner of speaking. Here we abandoned Pedro’s car with its left wheels only five centimeters from the brink of eternity … and began our hike.
Well, four more tunnels and 20 minutes later, we walked into the plaza of San Pedro Analco, 43 stomach-wrenching kilometers from Hostotipaquillo.
A lot of silver and some gold were mined in this very old town starting in the 16th century and continued right up until 1984, when production shut down due to low silver prices. San Pedro has a church built in the 1800s and today a population of 290, of whom we encountered maybe five.
The cobblestone streets are narrow, the houses very old and the temperature quite warm (because of an elevation of only 880 meters).
Ruta mortal en moto! San Pedro Analco.
Ruta Mortal, a trip by motorcycle to San Pedro Analco.
Concluding our visit, we headed back to our vehicle, where we now faced the challenge of turning around on the so-called wide spot. I would have sworn it could not possibly be done, but in a mere 30 turns, each one involving a distance of maybe 10 centimeters, the Toyota was finally pointed toward the way home, and we again scraped through the remaining tunnels and carefully picked our way through the most recent landslides, all the while managing not to fall off the cliff-hanging road. We arrived back in Guadalajara at 8:30 p.m., delighted to still be numbered among the living.
So if you happen to be looking for adventure, here is a trip that will get your adrenaline going. Google Maps will guide you from Guadalajara to San Pedro Analco in just over two hours.
These days, the bridge I used to cross over the Santiago River is completely underwater thanks to the construction of the 209-meter-high Yesca Dam in 2012. In its place is a new bridge that rests upon pilings 120 meters tall.
When they built the new bridge, they said they were going to “upgrade” the road, but in September 2019, a group of motorcyclists made the long journey to San Pedro, naturally passing through all the tunnels without a scrape, demonstrating that the road has changed little over the years.
Their excellent video, Ruta Mortal, clearly shows that the route to San Pedro Analco is just as hair-raising as ever.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for 31 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
The ISSSTE General Hospital in Tampico, Tamaulipas.
A hospital in Tamaulipas has finally received its 20-million-peso (about US $1 million) prize more than 10 months after the federal government’s “presidential plane” raffle was drawn.
The combined prize pool was roughly equivalent to the value of the unwanted presidential plane, which was to be the prize until the government realized that owning and maintaining a luxuriously-outfitted Boeing 787 Dreamliner would be impractical for most Mexicans.
Luis Miguel Rodríguez, director of the ISSSTE General Hospital in Tampico, confirmed that the health care facility received its prize on Thursday.
“… They paid us, what a relief! … [The money] materialized, fortunately,” he said, adding that he never lost faith that the funds would arrive despite the delay because he knew that the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.
The hospital followed the government’s instructions and opened a new bank account last year to receive its prize but weeks and then months rolled by and the deposit wasn’t made. All the while, the 55-year-old hospital was “falling to pieces,” according to a report by the newspaper Reforma.
Rodríguez said the 20 million pesos will go toward maintenance at the hospital, which is set to be replaced by a new facility sometime in the not too distant future, although no date has been set for construction to begin.
“We’re going to give the hospital a bit of a facelift so that it at least has adequate conditions before it’s replaced … We’re going to give it some maintenance because you go into a room and the light doesn’t work, the wall is falling down, it has no curtains,” Rodríguez said.
Among the projects to be carried out are the installation of new electrical wiring, general repairs and painting, he said.
The Tampico ISSSTE hospital serves 250,000 state workers and their families, and receives patients not just from southern Tamaulipas but also the north of Veracruz and Hidalgo and the southeast of San Luis Potosí.
