UNAM scientists and school mascot model the SakCu mask. Gaceta UNAM
Researchers at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) have developed a face mask that neutralizes the virus that causes COVID-19, the university announced Thursday.
The university’s official gazette reported that a group from the Materials Research Institute created a three-layer anti-microbial mask that has the capacity to inactivate SARS-CoV-2. The external and internal layers are made out of cotton while the middle nano layer is made out of silver and copper on polypropylene. Those metals were chosen for their anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, according to lead researcher Sandra Rodil.
Working in conjunction with the Hospital Juárez de México in Mexico City, the UNAM researchers proved that the silver-copper nano layer inactivates the virus.
Drops containing the virus were taken from COVID patients at the hospital and placed on the mask’s middle layer. If the viral concentration in the saliva was high, the virus disappeared by more than 80% in eight hours, the researchers observed. If the viral concentration was low, none of the ribonucleic acid, or RNA, of the virus was detected after two hours.
The researchers also found that the silver-copper nano layer could counteract a range of infection-causing bacteria that are commonly found in hospitals.
Called SakCu – Sak means silver in Mayan and Cu is the chemical symbol for copper – the anti-viral mask can be washed up to 10 times without losing its biocidal properties. It is 50% effective at preventing the entry of tiny, aerosol-like particles and 80-90% effective at stopping PM 2.5 fine particles, the gazette said.
The incorrect disposal of SakCu is unproblematic in terms of risk of exposure to the coronavirus because unlike other face masks it won’t remain contaminated, the gazette added.
While the UNAM academics are confident in the virus-fighting properties of the mask they created, their research has not yet been peer reviewed. The university has the capacity to produce at least 200 of the masks per day and they will soon go on sale at Tienda UNAM, a retail store on the university’s campus in the south of Mexico City.
Banners proclaim residents' dismay over routing the train through the center of Campeche. The route has since been changed.
The cost of the Maya Train railroad will be one-third higher than originally anticipated due to a range of changes to the project, according to the federal official in charge of its construction.
Rogelio Jiménez Pons, director of the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur), told the newspaper Milenio that the construction of double tracks on half of the 1,500-kilometer route and the electrification of almost 50% of the railroad will increase the cost of the project, which had been estimated at 150 billion pesos (US $7.3 billion).
The total cost is now estimated to be above 200 billion pesos (US $9.8 billion), he said before stressing that the government has sufficient resources to complete the railroad without the need for private investment.
“[The railroad] won’t be more expensive due to minimal reasons but rather because the project will have a better and greater scope,” Jiménez said.
Other changes to the original plan include the construction of a 48-kilometer elevated stretch of track between Cancún and Tulum and modifications to the route in Campeche.
Rogelio Jiménez says additional costs will be covered by savings generated in fight against corruption.
Jiménez said paying for the changes is not a problem because the government’s fight against corruption has generated significant savings.
“Public resources are being released, there are more and more savings and the macroeconomic aspects of the country are sound,” he told Milenio.
Despite the changes to the project and construction delays related to the pandemic, the railroad – which will connect cities and towns in Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo – remains on track to begin operations in December 2023, the Fonatur chief said.
Tourist, freight and regular passenger services will run on the railroad, one of several major infrastructure projects currently under construction by the federal government.
The electrification of almost half the tracks raises initial investment costs but will generate savings in the long term because maintenance costs will be lower, Jiménez said.
According to Fonatur plans, sections between Mérida and Cancún and Cancún and Chetumal will be fully or partially electrified.
Jiménez said the route had to be changed in some places due to archaeological discoveries and other technical issues.
In Campeche, for example, a pre-Hispanic city the size of Palenque was found, he said, explaining that the discovery precludes construction of tracks at ground level. Instead, an elevated section will be built in the area, Jiménez said.
Another change to the project is that the railroad won’t run through the center of Campeche city due to opposition from a group of residents that the government was unable to overcome.
Jiménez said earlier this week that the change will actually reduce the overall cost of the project by approximately 2 billion pesos (US $98.5 million) because it will simplify the project and the government won’t have to rehouse residents who would have been forced to abandon their homes.
However, he acknowledged “it’s a shame” that passengers won’t be able to disembark from the Maya Train and walk to the historic center of Campeche, a UNESCO World Heritage Site surrounded by a wall built in the late 17th century. Under the new plan, the Campeche city station will be a seven-minute drive from the historic center, Jiménez said.
A group of Campeche residents obtained an injunction in March against the forced eviction of people who lived on or near the proposed route. The government hoped to reach an agreement that would allow it to continue with its original plan but was unable to do so. Residents of Ermita, Santa Lucía and Camino Real expressed their satisfaction with the route change on social media.
“The residents … thank our President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for listening to and attending to our request to remove the tracks from our neighborhoods … [due to] the risks the passing of the Maya Train within our beautiful and calm city of Campeche represented. … Thank you for respecting our neighborhoods,” they said.
Protesters surround the president's vehicle Friday morning in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.
For the second time since he took office in December 2018, President López Obrador didn’t appear in person at his own morning news conference on Friday.
Members of the CNTE teachers union and other protesters blocked his vehicle for more than two hours, preventing him from entering a military base in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, where this morning’s conference was held.
Almost an hour into the presser, López Obrador appeared via a video call to address reporters from the SUV in which he was traveling.
“I’m pleased to be able to communicate with you in a somewhat special situation,” said the president, still wearing his seatbelt.
“… I was about to arrive … but at the entrance to the barracks a group of teachers from the Chiapas CNTE prevented our entry under the condition that we had to attend to them immediately and resolve their demands,” he said.
López Obrador addressed the press conference with a video call.
“I can’t allow this because the president of Mexico cannot be a hostage of anyone. I can’t yield to any vested interest group so I decided to stay here. I’m not going to enter by force,” López Obrador said, comparing his non-violent actions to those of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.
“… If they don’t allow us to pass, I’ll stay here the time that is necessary,” he said. “… Due to the dignity invested in the president I can’t yield to the blackmail by anybody. I don’t establish relations of mafioso complicity with any vested interest group. So we’re offering dialogue … [with the] education minister, to whom this issue corresponds.”
The president described the teachers’ protest as legal but improper and called on them to consider whether he really deserved to be subjected to it. He noted that he has met with members of the dissident teachers’ union as many as 10 times and canceled the previous government’s “badly named education reform.”
Protesting teachers demanded to speak to the president about employment issues including remuneration, working conditions and recruitment. The disgruntled educators also rejected the government’s claim that the much protested 2013 education reform has been fully repealed.
Students, healthcare workers and family members of victims of crime were also among the approximately 200 protesters that blocked the president’s vehicle.
“We’re mothers of victims of femicide. We want our cases to be resolved,” Adriana Gómez Martínez told the newspaper Reforma.
“I believe he’s doing the wrong thing [by staying in his car] because he should attend to us, he should know our requests, that’s why we’re here,” she said.
After the protesters dispersed, López Obrador finally made it into the military compound at about 8:15 a.m., more than two hours after the 6:00 a.m. starting time for a security meeting he planned to attend and more than an hour after the commencement of his 7:00 a.m. press conference.
Once inside he met with members of his security cabinet and Chiapas Governor Rutilio Escandón, who initiated the president’s presser in his absence.
The only other time López Obrador was unable to attend a morning conference was when he contracted COVID-19 in January and was away from the conference hall for two weeks.
Nora's forecast track as of 1:00 p.m. CDT on Friday. us national hurricane center
A hurricane watch is in effect for the area between Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, and Cabo Corrientes, Jalisco, as Tropical Storm Nora continues to strengthen on its northwest trajectory, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
As of 1:00 p.m. CDT on Friday, the storm was 385 kilometers south of Manzanillo and 980 kilometers southeast of Cabo San Lucas. It was moving northwest at 19 kilometers per hour and is expected to approach the southwestern coast of Mexico today. It is forecast to pass close to the coast of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit Saturday, when it is projected to become a hurricane, and then move into the Gulf of California on Sunday and Monday.
Maximum sustained winds were close to 85 kilometers per hour with higher gusts. The National Water Commission (Conagua) warned that Nora could hit Baja California Sur as a Category 1 hurricane on Monday.
In addition to the hurricane watch, a tropical storm warning has been declared for the coastal area from Tecpán de Galeana, Guerrero, to San Blas, Nayarit, and a tropical storm watch is in effect from San Blas to Mazatlán.
Heavy rains are forecast in coastal areas of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco. Baja California Sur will see heavy rainfall late Sunday and Monday, the NHC said.
The United States has urged Mexico to clear makeshift migrant camps in northern border cities, according to Reuters, while a study by a human rights organization found that the U.S government is placing asylum seekers in “grave danger” by expelling them from the country.
Citing United States officials familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the U.S. government has urged Mexico to clear ad hoc camps due to concerns they pose a security risk and attract criminal gangs that prey on vulnerable migrants.
Two of the largest migrant camps in Mexico are those in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, and Tijuana, Baja California. Each is home to approximately 2,500 migrants, many of whom have fled Central American countries such as Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Two officials told Reuters that the U.S. has been asking Mexico to clear the camps for weeks. Security could be jeopardized if a large number of camp-dwellers make a sudden, simultaneous rush for the border, they said.
The United States also has concerns about sanitation and drug cartels seeking to recruit desperate migrants from within the camps. The Reuters sources stressed the importance of eradicating conditions that encourage cartel members to attempt to extort migrants in camps or pressure them to join their organizations.
The head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute (INM) said Thursday that undocumented migrants represent a “gold mine” for organized crime groups. Speaking at a national migration conference, Francisco Garduño said that people smuggling is a lucrative business for criminals.
“It’s so profitable that if 100,000 migrants cross [the border into the United States] and they charge them US $5,000 each, that would give us $500 million, that would be 10 billion Mexican pesos. In July alone, 212,000 migrants crossed,” he said.
The INM chief made a commitment to work with security authorities to stamp out the crimes of people smuggling and human trafficking and protect migrants’ rights.
One migrant who was a victim of extortion in northern Mexico is 23-year-old Venezuelan Yorje Pérez Moreno. He and a friend had to pay US $600 before a taxi driver – who threatened to hand them over to a drug cartel – would allow them out of his vehicle in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
“We live with fear because it’s a very corrupt area. Everyone says that the cartels set the rules, the narcos are the law,” he told the news outlet Noticias Telemundo.
Meanwhile, Human Rights First (HRF), a United States-based human rights organization, published a new report this week that is highly critical of the Biden administration’s use of former U.S. president Donald Trump’s asylum seeker expulsion policies.
Mexico’s immigration chief told a conference on migration that moving migrants northward is a gold mine for criminal organizations.
“Asylum seekers face horrific danger at the U.S. southern border as the Biden administration embraces and escalates the Trump administration’s misuse of Title 42 public health authority,” HRF said in a statement.
Title 42 allows U.S. authorities to expel undocumented migrants to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in migrant holding facilities.
“In August 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new Title 42 order that the Department of Homeland Security uses to illegally deny asylum seekers protection …” HRF said.
The report says the expulsion policy is inflicting “immense harm – stranding asylum seekers in grave danger where they are targets of brutal kidnappings and attacks, turning away Black and LGBTQ asylum seekers to suffer bias-motivated violence, separating families, and endangering public health.”
Since President Joe Biden took office in January, HRF has identified at least 6,356 public and media reports of violent attacks – including rape, kidnapping and assault – against people blocked from requesting asylum protection at the Mexico-U.S. border and/or expelled to Mexico.
“That new number is more than four times the 1,500 attacks Human Rights First tracked over nearly two years due to the Trump administration’s devastating Remain in Mexico policy,” the organization said.
“Mexican authorities continue to carry out and turn a blind eye to violent attacks against asylum seekers and migrants. The extensive control exerted by cartels across vast swaths of territory and entrenched complicity by Mexican authorities make clear that U.S. policies … inevitably endanger asylum seekers, attorneys, and humanitarian groups and subject asylum seekers to exploitation and extortion,” it said.
“This administration is expelling asylum-seeking families and adults to the very same dangers that asylum seekers were forced to endure under the Trump administration’s illegal expulsion and Remain in Mexico. Seven months into this administration, President Biden cannot continue to ignore the exploding human rights travesty his expulsion policy is causing,” said Kennji Kizuka of Human Rights First.
“Policies that force asylum seekers to wait in danger in Mexico are unlawful and unfixable, cause enormous suffering and harm, and create disorder and chaos.”
HRF called on the Biden administration to end the use of the Title 42 policy and stop expelling refugee families and adults to countries of feared persecution or places where they are at risk of life-threatening harm.
It also urged the United States government to process asylum requests at the southern border, including U.S. ports of entry, while employing humane policies that uphold U.S. laws and treaties to provide access to asylum for people seeking protection.
Since the organization made that recommendation the United States Supreme Court ruled against overturning the federal court decision that ordered the U.S. government to restore the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), as the remain in Mexico policy is officially known.
The Mexican government noted that it has no obligation to cooperate with any re-implementation of the policy but said Wednesday that it would initiate talks with the United States government on the issue. It has previously showed a willingness to cooperate with U.S. migration policies, including after Trump threatened to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican exports in 2019.
At a meeting in Mexico City earlier this month, Mexican and United States officials agreed to expand bilateral cooperation on migration, border security and the economy, while in a video call in May, President López Obrador told U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, “We agree with the migration policies you are developing and we are going to help, you can count on us.”
A baby stolen Wednesday evening from a hospital in Zapopan, Jalisco, has been found in good health, police announced on Thursday.
Neighbors found the infant abandoned in the parking area of a building in the Arcos de Zapopan neighborhood. She was taken to hospital for medical evaluation where Jalisco Governor Enrique Alfaro reported that the baby was in good health and that her father had identified her. The governor added that further forensic confirmation of her identity was in progress. Several hours later, the baby was shown back in her mother’s arms.
“The baby who was stolen yesterday from the Hospital General de Occidente is back in her mother’s arms today … but this is not over, we are still looking for the perpetrators,” Alfaro said on Twitter.
The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office is also investigating a related incident in which a woman tried to take a baby from another nearby hospital on August 20. At the time, staff stopped her and rescued the baby, but did not report the incident to authorities.
Attorney General Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez said agents are investigating whether it could have been the same person who successfully kidnapped the newborn on Wednesday.
Solís also noted that the woman who stole the infant on Wednesday had knowledge of the staff shift schedule, suggesting that she may have been assisted by someone who worked for the hospital.
Healthcare workers at a hospital in Tamaulipas, which set a record Wednesday for new cases.
More than 20,000 new coronavirus cases were added to Mexico’s accumulated tally for a second consecutive day on Thursday, while the official COVID-19 death toll rose by 835.
The Health Ministry reported 20,633 new infections, raising the country’s pandemic total to just over 3.29 million.
The additional fatalities lifted the death toll to 256,287, a figure that is almost certainly a vast undercount given that there were almost half a million excess deaths between January 2020 and March 2021.
There are 132,418 active cases across Mexico, a 2.5% increase compared to Wednesday. On a per capita basis, Colima has the highest number of active cases with almost 400 per 100,000 people, the Health Ministry reported. Mexico City ranks second followed by Tabasco, San Luis Potosí and Nayarit.
Four states have fewer than 50 active cases per 100,000 people. They are Chihuahua, Chiapas, Baja California and Morelos.
In other COVID-19 news:
• Almost 82.7 million vaccine doses have been administered in Mexico, according to the most recent Health Ministry data, after just over 755,000 were given Wednesday. About 63% of the eligible population – people aged 18 and over – has received at least one shot.
• Tamaulipas recorded its worst day of the pandemic in terms of new case numbers on Wednesday. Authorities in the northern border state reported 740 new infections, 23 more than the previous record set a week ago.
Reynosa recorded the highest number of new cases with 145 followed by Matamoros (114); Tampico (96); Ciudad Madero (89); and Ciudad Victoria (65).
Tamaulipas also recorded 10 additional COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday. The state’s official death toll is currently 5,824, according to state data, while the accumulated case tally is 75,509.
• A Pan American Health Organization Official said Thursday that Mexican authorities should seek to identify members of the community with worrying symptoms of COVID-19 and get them to hospital before it’s too late.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
“… Identifying those who present symptoms of alert and taking them to a COVID unit can save lives, more so than just waiting in hospitals for them to arrive in very deteriorated conditions,” Cristian Morales said.
He noted that the third wave of the pandemic is hitting Mexico hard and that almost 1,000 people have died per day recently. The high death toll has occurred, Morales said, even though the federal government significantly increased the capacity of public hospitals to treat COVID patients.
• The Colima Health Ministry reported Wednesday that it had detected the state’s first confirmed case of the lambda strain of the coronavirus. The variant was first identified in Peru, which easily has the highest per capita COVID-19 death rate in the world with 609 fatalities per 100,000 people. Scientists have warned that the strain could be even more contagious than delta but that hasn’t been confirmed.
The World Health Organization lists lamda as a “variant of interest” whereas the alpha, beta, gamma and delta strains are “variants of concern.”
• The Uruapan General Hospital reported Tuesday that its COVID ward was full.
There are more than 1,000 active cases in the Michoacán municipality, where the risk of infection is maximum risk red, according to local authorities.
According to federal data, the occupancy rate for general care beds in COVID wards is 100% at 120 hospitals across the country.
Among the hospitals at capacity are facilities located in Mexico City; Pátzcuaro, Michoacán; La Paz, Baja California Sur; Mazatlán, Sinaloa; Toluca, México state; and Tehuacán, Puebla.
Oscar Ponzanelli was commissioned to create the statue of the president by the group Realidades Mi Mundo Mágico (My Magical World Realities).
President López Obrador will soon be able to adorn his home with a statue in his likeness.
A citizens’ group commissioned a statue of the president to celebrate his successes in office since he assumed the country’s top job in late 2018.
Artist Oscar Ponzanelli was commissioned by members of the civil society association Realidades Mi Mundo Mágico (My Magical World Realities) to make the life-sized statue of the leader commonly known as AMLO. He completed it in April.
Eduardo Abelardo, the association’s president, said the statue will soon be delivered to the president with the hope that it will be displayed at the National Palace, Mexico’s seat of executive power that doubles as López Obrador’s home.
The gift acknowledges AMLO’s “tireless work” in the fight against political corruption, his efforts to obtain COVID-19 vaccines and his dedication to the social well-being of the people of Mexico, Abelardo said in a video posted to social media.
“Followers of our president from all over the Mexican republic united in a group, and seeing his achievements and successes, we decided … to have a monument made with the slogan ‘no more political corruption, no to organized crime and yes to social well-being,’” he said.
But receiving the statue might not make the president as happy as they would hope. López Obrador said in 2019 that when he leaves the presidency, he doesn’t want any streets to be named after him or statues in his likeness to be erected in public places.
“… I don’t want anything to do with a cult of personality, … none of that,” he said.
However, there are already streets and even entire neighborhoods named after him in several states, the newspaper El Universal reported.
A still from the film Laberinto Yo’eme, a documentary about the Yaqui people that is set to premiere in select theaters across Mexico.
A documentary about the Yaqui people of Sonora and the struggles and injustices they have faced for decades begins screening in cinemas this week.
Laberinto Yo’eme, the debut film of Sergi Pedro Ros, will open Friday in Mexico City cinemas including the Cineteca Nacional and Cine Tonalá. The documentary will also begin screening in the coming days in other cities across Mexico, including Oaxaca, Veracruz, Monterrey and Guadalajara.
“My main interest [in making the film] came from the fact the Yaqui tribe is living through a situation of terrifying injustice,” Ros told the newspaper Milenio.
Members of the community participated in several protests last year to demand the return of expropriated land and the delivery of basic services authorities promised to them. They have also been affected by high levels of violence in Sonora, and two Yaqui activists who collaborated on the documentary, Tomás Rojo and Luis Urbano, were recently murdered.
“As a filmmaker, I was very interested in telling the story of a people who, despite all the extermination attempts they’ve lived through and which they continue suffering, continue to fight for who they are – keeping their culture, language, worldview and universe alive,” he said.
Made in conjunction with the Mexican Institute of Cinematography, the film shows the reality that the Yaqui community of southern Sonora is experiencing today, Ros said.
“Unfortunately, the story we tell in Laberinto Yo’eme is current, it’s what’s happening at the moment,” he said.
Their land rights have been violated for decades despite a 1940 presidential decree that recognized them as the owners of the land on which they live, Ros said.
Although the film explores a range of difficulties and challenges faced by the Yaqui people, it’s not all doom and gloom. It also gives viewers an insight into the traditional customs of the community, a group that is best known to some for inspiring the Carlos Castaneda book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge.
Ros said that his documentary might eventually find its way to a streaming service but emphasized that he made it specifically to be shown on the big screen.
“After you see this film you will never forget who the Yaquis are and what they’re living through at the moment,” he said.
The president announces the cabinet change in a video Thursday.
The minister responsible for Mexico’s domestic affairs will return to the Senate and her post will be taken by the governor of Tabasco, President López Obrador announced Thursday afternoon.
Olga Sánchez Cordero, 74, has served as minister of the interior since the López Obrador administration took office on December 1, 2018. She returns to the Senate, to which she was elected in September 2018, prior to which she was a Supreme Court justice for 20 years.
Tabasco Governor Adán Augusto López, 57, will take her place subject to obtaining a leave of absence in Tabasco, where he has been governor since January 2019. His terms ends at the end of this year.
López served as a senator between 2012 and 2018 and prior to that as a Tabasco state deputy between 2009 and 2012.
The president said in a video posted Thursday afternoon on social media that he invited Sánchez to head the Ministry of the Interior to set a precedent indicating a women could hold the post.
He praised her for her support and loyalty before introducing the new minister as his “friend, countryman and close friend.”
