Governor Alfaro says the state is recording 59 new COVID cases per day.
The use of face masks is no longer mandatory in public places in Jalisco with the exception of public transit and health care facilities.
Governor Enrique Alfaro said Monday that the decision to lift the mask mandate was taken after consultation with health experts. He said it was possible because the spread of the coronavirus has been controlled in Jalisco, which includes Guadalajara and tourist destinations such as Puerto Vallarta and the Lake Chapala area.
“The reality is that the numbers tell us we’re doing well, that we’ve made progress and the pandemic in our state has been controlled,” Alfaro said.
The governor said the state is currently recording an average of 59 new cases per day whereas the average over the past two years was 819. He said that just 21 coronavirus patients were hospitalized and there were only 19 COVID-related deaths last month, the lowest monthly total since April 2020.
“These indicators make us think that we can take a step forward with care, with awareness that this hasn’t finished,” Alfaro said.
He advised people with coronavirus-like symptoms to use face masks and noted that there has been a “persistent demand“ in schools for the mask mandate to be lifted.
“Now with the … heat, using a face mask has been an enormous burden for girls and boys,” Alfaro said.
He said his government understands that people are tired of face masks after two years of continuous use but warned citizens not to drop their guard.
Alfaro said he was confident that the decision to end the mask mandate – which officially concluded Tuesday – was the right one and that coronavirus case numbers will remain low.
Several other states have dropped mask mandates – at least for open air spaces – including Baja California Sur, Baja California, Mexico City, Tamaulipas and Nuevo León.
Mexico went through a large omicron-fueled fourth wave of infections that peaked in January with almost 1 million new cases recorded.
The Health Ministry said Tuesday that the pandemic was continuing with “minimal activity,” noting that there was an average of 370 cases per day over the past week.
Mexico has recorded over 5.7 million confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic and more than 324,000 COVID-19 deaths. About two-thirds of the population is vaccinated, a figure that should soon increase as the government is now offering vaccines to all children aged 12 and over.
Water thieves fill their tanks with municipal water in Ecatepec.
Any resource that runs through government-owned pipelines – petroleum, LP gas and even water – is fair game for Mexican thieves.
According to authorities in Ecatepec, México state, 1 million liters of water are being stolen every day in the municipality, which adjoins the northeastern Mexico City borough of Gustavo A. Madero.
The crime generates huge profits for criminal groups that prey on people who are desperate for water, a resource that has become increasingly scarce in Ecatepec and many other parts of the country.
Mario Luna Escanamé, director of the Ecatepec water and sewer utility Sapase, said that an estimated 365 million liters are stolen annually from the local water service.
He said the quantity stolen on a daily basis would fill 100 pipas, or water tankers, each with a capacity for 10,000 liters. “That’s the size of the problem we’re seeing,” Luna said.
The only municipality where more water is stolen is Tijuana, the newspaper El Universal reported.
Sapase has identified numerous points where water has been illegally extracted in recent months, a period in which the incidence of the crime has increased significantly.
Most of the illegal taps were found in a part of Ecatepec known as the Quinta Zona, a densely populated area where water shortages are common.
“The most complicated area is the east of the municipality, where there are neighborhoods adjacent to the México state Outer Loop Road,” Luna said.
“They’re the most critical points because they depend 100% on the Cutzamala [water] system and if there’s a problem there, that area suffers a lot,” he said.
Thieves use pumps and hoses to extract water, according to El Universal, which witnessed the crime being committed in broad daylight. The stolen water is diverted into large containers in vehicles such as pickup trucks or vans, or to tanks in nearby houses and businesses.
Thieves fill their containers.
Lookouts warn thieves if the police or Sapase personnel are approaching. The huachicoleros de agua, as the thieves are colloquially known, later sell the water to families whose homes are not connected to the water system.
El Universal reported that 1,000 liters are sold for 1,000 pesos (US $49) and thieves can make up to 100,000 pesos (US $4,900) per day. Groups specifically dedicated to the crime use sophisticated equipment to steal the water, Luna said.
“It’s clear that it’s now something that is very organized,” he said, adding that the crime is driven by supply and demand for water.
“There is a great need due to the more than 15 billion liters we haven’t received in the past 37 months,” the water utility chief said, referring to a reduction in supply from the México state water commission that has been exacerbated by theft.
One Ecatepec resident told El Universal that many families have no option but to buy water from thieves.
“That happens in several neighborhoods. … As we need water we have to buy it from them. We call them and they come,” said Belén, who lives in the Novela Mexicana neighborhood.
“We’re living in a vicious circle,” said Ricardo Galindo, a resident of the México Prehispánico neighborhood.
“The thieves take advantage of our need because we really need water. … There’s none in the faucet so we have to buy it. … We’re part of the problem but … we’ve lived [without running water] for many years,” he said.
While illicit water entrepreneurs steal large quantities of water, some Ecatepec residents, including business owners, connect hoses to illegal taps just to get enough water to satisfy their own needs.
But those quantities are also very large in some cases: one of the businesses taking free water is a laundromat, El Universal said.
The deputy director of Sapase said water theft affects the utility’s finances because less water reaches the homes of people who pay for the liquid.
Ecatepec authorities have initiated at least 13 investigations in the municipality but there have been no arrests.
Mayor Fernando Vilchis recently reached an agreement with the state government to crack down on the crime, which also occurs in other México state municipalities albeit not to the same extent as in Ecatepec.
State lawmakers with the Morena party have proposed a law that would jail water thieves for three years, but it has not yet been put to a vote in Congress.
Oxxo stores were the favorite target of a thief in Oaxaca.
A man suspected of robbing 92 Oxxo convenience stores in Oaxaca has been arrested, state security officials said on Saturday.
The man was attempting to rob a store on the Oaxaca-Mexico City highway 10 kilometers north of Oaxaca city, state Security Minister Dalia Baños said.
Workers at the store pressed a panic button which alerted state police, who were already investigating the suspect. The man was arrested by police, who found cards in his possession containing written threats against police which he’d previously left in the stores he robbed.
State Attorney General Arturo Peimbert Calvo said that of the 92 robberies, 55 were committed in Oaxaca city, in the city center and in the neighborhoods of Pueblo Nuevo and San Martín Mexicapam. In 2022, the suspect also carried out robberies in the municipalities of Santa Cruz Xoxocotlán and San Pablo Etla.
The Oxxo robberies began in 2021.
Peimbert added that the arrest represented a major blow to crime in the state.
Amid a rise in robberies of stores, state police in Oaxaca are carrying out patrols in convenience stores and shopping centers, and will install security checkpoints in areas with a high incidence of similar crimes, the newspaper El Sol de México reported.
Flights will be transferred out of AICM over the next 12 months. shutterstock
A senior transport official said Monday that operations at the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) will be reduced to avoid more dangerous incidents such as that seen last Saturday when a plane had to abort its landing to avoid colliding with another aircraft waiting to take off.
Deputy Transport Minister Rogelio Jiménez Pons said 25% of flights will be transferred to the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) and the Toluca International Airport over the next 12 months.
The migration of flights from the saturated AICM will begin in August, he said in a radio interview.
At a meeting with government officials on Monday, representatives of Volaris, Aeroméxico and VivaAerobús expressed their willingness to shift some flights, Jimenez said.
Those three airlines all have a large number of operations at the AICM, he said. “What we’re proposing is an objective … [over] 12 months to achieve a reduction of 25%,” Jiménez said.
“The [Mexico City] airport has been saturated and in terrible conditions for decades,” he added.
The deputy minister said the broader objective is to distribute airline traffic across five airports in central Mexico: the AICM, the AIFA, Toluca, Puebla and Cuernavaca.
Located about 50 kilometers north of downtown Mexico City, the AIFA opened in late March but is currently only handling a very limited number of operations.
With regard to Saturday’s incident involving two Volaris planes, Jiménez confirmed that an air traffic control mistake was to blame. A flight arriving from Mazatlán was cleared to land on a runway where a plane was waiting to take off to Guatemala City.
Jiménez said that a shift change may have contributed to the blunder.
“There is possibly an issue that we’re checking now. … [We have to check] whether there was a shift change,” he said, raising the possibility that different air traffic controllers provided instructions to the two Volaris planes involved in the incident.
Three airlines have agreed to the plan to relieve pressure on AICM. shutterstock
“We have to check that, because then there would be two people responsible,” Jiménez said. He described the incident as a “frightening situation” but asserted that people’s safety was not placed at risk.
“The defense of the pilots was put to the test and thank God, these people are prepared,” the deputy minister said.
According to air traffic controllers and aviation experts cited by the newspaper Reforma, the number of aborted landings, or go-arounds, has doubled at the AICM this year due to the redesign of air space to allow that airport and the AIFA to operate simultaneously.
There was an average of three go-arounds for every 1,000 operations at the AICM in the first four months of the year between 2019 and 2021, the sources estimated. That figure increased to six between January and April of 2022, they said. No official data on aborted landings is published.
“The number of go-arounds has increased since August 2021 but they have been more recurrent this year,” an AICM operations commander said.
“We calculate that the rate is five, almost six [go-arounds per 1,000 landings], mainly due to the redesign [of air space] in order to coexist with the AIFA,” he said.
Juan Antonio José, an aviation expert, told Reforma there are up to 10 go-arounds per day at the AICM, where there are some 450 landings every day.
Alfredo Covarrubias, head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Union (Sinacta), confirmed that go-arounds have increased to about six per 1,000 landings. He also said that aircraft incidents have increased 300%.
“Among controllers it was previously a scandal to have an incident. … Now it’s becoming a normality and they prefer not to file a report when things happen because there are reprisals,” Covarrubias told a press conference on Monday.
He said that about 30 serious incidents have been reported in Mexico over the past four months, including 10 at the AICM.
Air traffic controllers cited by Reforma said incidents were kept secret when Víctor Hernández was director of Navigation Services for Mexican Airspace, a government agency. Hernández was dismissed after Saturday’s incident and replaced by Ricardo Torres Muela, who has over 40 years’ experience as an air traffic controller.
According to Sinacta, there is a shortfall of some 300 air traffic controllers across Mexico, meaning that those employed at the nation’s airports have to work long shifts. The union also says that controllers lack training.
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations said last week that it appeared that air traffic controllers at the AICM have received little training and support as to how to direct flights operating in the new airspace configuration.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it downgraded Mexico from Category 1 to Category 2 after finding that it didn’t meet standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
“The FAA identified several areas of noncompliance with minimum ICAO safety standards,” the aviation authority said in a statement.
“A Category 2 rating means that the country’s laws or regulations lack the necessary requirements to oversee the country’s air carriers in accordance with minimum international safety standards, or the civil aviation authority is lacking in one or more areas such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record keeping, inspection procedures, or resolution of safety concerns.”
Cancún saw 2.6 million visitors in April, an increase of almost 400,000 compared to the same month of 2019.
A record high of almost two million international tourists flew into Mexico in March, government data shows.
The incoming passenger traffic was the highest ever for a single month and double the number of international tourists who flew into the country in March 2021.
Data published in an Interior Ministry migration statistics report shows that just under 1.99 million foreigners arrived at the nation’s airports in March.
The figure represents a 27% increase compared to February and a 35% jump compared to January. A total of 5.02 million international tourists flew into Mexico in the first three months of the year, an increase of 138.5% compared to the same period of 2021.
Humberto Molina, an economist at the consultancy firm Gemes who specializes in tourism, noted that it was the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic that a new monthly record for international arrivals was set.
The number of international tourists visiting Mexico has been consistently rising in 2022. March’s numbers were higher than February’s and equaled a 35% jump from January’s.
“It’s due to the extraordinary performance of the United States market,” he said.
United States citizens accounted for 66% of international air arrivals in March, up from 60% in pre-pandemic times. All told, 1.31 million Americans flew into Mexico in March, or over six times more than the number of Canadians, who made up the second largest cohort of international tourists.
While the influx of international visitors is a boon for the tourism sector, Molina described the heavy dependence on the U.S. market as a problem.
“Mexico is now more exposed to the United States, and it’s a problem to depend so much on one single market,” he said.
But as long as U.S. visitors continue streaming into the country, it’s likely that more monthly tourism records will be set.
Molina said it’s probable that a new record for international arrivals was set in April, for which federal data has not yet been published.
Tourism has been rising in 2022 in Mexico’s most popular vacation destinations despite troubling crime incidents in places like Quintana Roo.
The entirety of Holy Week fell in April this year, driving up visitor numbers. Cancún airport had its busiest April ever last month with 2.6 million arrivals, an increase of almost 400,000 compared to the same month of 2019. That figure includes domestic passengers and Mexicans who arrived from abroad.
April was also a record month for the airports in the Pacific coast resort cities of Los Cabos and Puerto Vallarta.
Francisco Madrid, director of the Center of Research and Tourism Competitiveness at Anáhuac University in Mexico City, said it remains to be seen whether visitor numbers will remain high in the months ahead.
“We’ll have to see whether inflationary pressures and the reopening of other nations [to tourists] allow [us] to maintain … [these levels] in the coming months,” he said.
Molina said that new COVID outbreaks, inflation and higher interest rates – rates rose by 0.5% in the U.S. last week – could all affect the strong recovery of the Mexican tourism sector. However, he said that the biggest risk to the industry is insecurity.
Insecurity has risen in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo, where numerous incidents of violence have occurred in recent months.
Suspects in the murder-kidnapping case in Nogales.
Three women were arrested in Sonora for the kidnapping of a baby, the murder of her mother and an attack on her grandmother.
Forty-five-day-old Alison Guadalupe was kidnapped Saturday by two women in Nogales, a town on the U.S. border, across from Nogales in Arizona. The mother, Adriana, 33, was killed during the kidnapping and the grandmother Gabina, 56, was assaulted.
The Sonora Attorney General’s Office confirmed early on Sunday that Guadalupe had been found in good health at a property 230 kilometers east of Nogales in the border town of Agua Prieta, which neighbors the Arizona town of Douglas.
The perpetrators had given Adriana and Gabina a ride home from hospital and returned to the home later with food and drink. The mother and grandmother consumed it and lost consciousness, the newspaper Milenio reported.
The state Attorney General’s Office later confirmed that forensic tests showed that Adriana and Gabina tested positive for Benzodiazepine, Alprazolam and Diazepam, which can all be used as sedatives.
The newspaper said the two women had been left tied up. Gabina woke up to see that her daughter was motionless and realized that Alison was missing. She managed to break free and contact the authorities.
Alison was returned to her father and Gabina on Sunday. “Thank you for everything. God is going to give me strength to move forward … Thank you for recovering the princess,” Gabina said.
The three women who were arrested are all from the same family. The state Attorney General’s Office said the 31-year-old woman suspected of being the intellectual author wanted to kidnap a baby to validate a fictitious pregnancy in an effort to keep her partner. She was allegedly assisted by her mother, 52, and cousin, 22.
The three women are being held on suspicion of kidnapping, femicide, attempted femicide and robbery.
The new inspection requirement takes effect in November.
A new inspection requirement for new vehicles will take effect later this year, the federal government announced.
The Economy Ministry (SE) announced an additional verification requirement for most new vehicles that weigh less than 3,857 kilograms.
Called NOM 236, the requirement will take effect in November, according to an SE publication in the government’s official gazette.
All cars registered in Mexico will have to pass an inspection before they have 1,000 kilometers on their odometers.
Among the things to be checked are cars’ bodywork, seatbelts, lights, brakes, wheel alignment, suspension and engine. Any serious problems will have to repaired in order for vehicles to be deemed roadworthy.
The new inspection requirement is in addition to the emissions verification that vehicles also must pass.
Vehicles will have to pass a second NOM 236 inspection four years after the initial one and additional ones every two years after that until they are 10 years old. Inspections will then become annual. “Intensive use” vehicles will face annual inspections from the get-go.
Among the vehicles exempt from the new requirement are those that weigh less than 400 kilograms and those used exclusively in off-road settings.
A bride risked arriving at her wedding a little wind-blown on Saturday when she jumped on the back of a motorcycle to get to the church on time after being stuck in traffic.
In a video on social media, the woman is seen in a large white wedding dress and veil getting on the back of a motorcycle amid heavy traffic on the Mexico City-Toluca highway. Two people can be seen helping her onto the motorcycle between lanes of traffic, ensuring her dress is well placed.
In another video, the bride and motorcyclist are seen cruising down the highway at speed.
The motorcyclist is thought to have been a stranger, but saw the bride was in a desperate situation, the newspaper La Razón reported. It’s unclear whether she arrived late to say her vows.
“They’re going to give a ride on a motorcycle to the bride because otherwise she won’t get there,” one of the people filming from another vehicle can be heard saying off camera, as the bride mounts the bike.
“What worried me was that the dress would get stuck in the wheel,” one person wrote on social media.
The traffic was caused by an accident near La Marquesa, 30 kilometers east of Toluca, in the direction of Mexico City, which almost completely stopped traffic.
Named after the 19th-century independence hero and poet, the honor was bestowed upon López Obrador for advocating the economic integration of American states, strengthening regional unity and defending just causes, peace and cooperation between nations.
Among the other heads of state who have received Cuba’s highest honor are Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his deceased predecessor Hugo Chávez, Russian President Vladimir Putin, former Iraq president Saddam Hussein, former Chilean president Salvador Allende and former South African president Nelson Mandela, who received the order before he assumed the presidency.
In Havana, after a whirlwind tour of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize, López Obrador also attended a ceremony at the Plaza de la Revolución (Revolution Square), where former Cuban president Fidel Castro delivered countless lengthy speeches during his almost 50-year rule.
President López Obrador at Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, where he laid a wreath to honor Cuba’s independence hero José Martí. López Obrador website
At the square – backed by buildings adorned by large images of Cuba’s revolutionary heroes Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos – the Mexican president laid a wreath to honor Martí, who was killed in an 1895 battle with Spanish troops.
After being conferred with the honor at the nearby Palace of the Revolution, López Obrador – well-known for his indefatigable oratory – delivered a nearly hour-long speech, during which he reiterated his rejection of the United States’ trade embargo on Cuba and pledged to never bet on the failure of the Cuban revolution, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2019.
Only 100 kilometers from the superpower that is the United States, there is an independent island inhabited by “modest and humble yet happy, creative and … very dignified people,” he said.
“… Personally, I have never bet on … nor will I ever bet on the failure of the Cuban revolution, its legacy of justice and its lessons of independence and dignity,” López Obrador said.
“I will never participate with coup plotters who conspire against the ideals of equality and universal fraternity,” the president told those present, including Díaz-Canel, who stood at his side while he delivered his speech.
However, AMLO did advocate for renewal of the political system in Cuba, which has been a one-party communist state for over six decades.
The president participated in multiple photo-op events but also met with President Díaz-Canel to discuss the purchase of COVID vaccines and the services of Cuban doctors in Mexico. President of Cuba’s office
He said he had hoped “that the revolution is capable of renewing itself in order to follow the example of the martyrs who fought for freedom, equality, justice and sovereignty.”
López Obrador, who claims his administration is carrying out a “fourth transformation” of Mexico, added that he had faith that the Cuban government was ruling the country with that objective in mind.
“That the new revolution is being carried out within the revolution is Cuba’s second great … lesson to the world. The [Cuban] people will once again demonstrate that reason is more powerful than force,” he said.
He said he would emphasize to United States President Joe Biden that no country should be excluded from the Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Los Angeles next month.
The U.S. government has indicated that Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua are unlikely to be invited, but López Obrador proclaimed that “nobody should exclude anyone.”
In much briefer remarkers after the Mexican president’s address, Díaz-Canel thanked his counterpart for his support and “firm position” against the United States’ blockade.
“We’ve addressed important issues on our bilateral agenda but also dealt with regional issues,” he said, referring to meetings between Cuban and Mexican officials during López Obrador’s 27-hour visit.
“… As President López Obrador has said, the relations in the [western] hemisphere must change profoundly. The Cuban revolution … will continue its triumphant march … and Mexico will always be able to count on Cuba,” added Díaz-Canel, who succeeded Raúl Castro as president in 2018.
Back in Mexico City on Monday, AMLO revealed that more than 500 Cuban doctors would come to work in Mexico and that the government would purchase COVID-19 vaccines from Cuba.
“We are … going to hire doctors from Cuba who are going to come to work in our country; we made this decision because we do not have the doctors we need,” he told reporters at his regular news conference.
COVID-19 vaccines from Cuba will be used to inoculate children as young as two, López Obrador said, adding that the communist island nation, which has developed its own anti-COVID shots, has achieved “great results” from its vaccination program.
The child was bitten after he maneuvered past a guardrail in front of the wolf enclosure and stuck his arm through the metal fencing.
A nine-year-old boy was bitten by a wolf on a visit to the zoo in México state on Friday.
The child maneuvered past a railing and approached the metal fence of the wolves’ cage to pet one of the large canines in the Nezahualcóyotl zoo, just east of Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport, before one of them bit him on the arm. The injury was serious and required surgery.
The zoo, run by the municipal government, closed its doors to the public after the incident but reopened on Sunday, with the wolf still in its enclosure. Many of the families visiting on Sunday were unaware of the incident, the newspaper El Universal reported.
The México state health ministry said it received reports of the incident at 4:30 p.m. on Friday and confirmed that the boy was in a stable condition on Saturday. His injuries were not life-threatening, health officials said, but after being taken initially to La Perla Hospital in Nezahualcóyotl he was transferred by air ambulance to a hospital in Zumpango, 55 kilometers north, due to the severity of his injuries.
The boy received reconstructive surgery on the arteries and veins of his arm and was able to move his fingers after a successful operation, Nezahualcóyotl Mayor Adolfo Cerqueda Rebollo confirmed.
The municipal government said it would help with the family’s medical costs. Cerqueda said he had arranged an evaluation for the boy with specialist surgeons to continue his recovery.
Meanwhile, Cerqueda said the wolf had been well-treated prior to the attack and that authorities were considering what to do with it.
“They did medical tests, and it is in optimal condition … We have received many queries as to what will happen to it, whether it will be put down or not,” he said.
Cerqueda added that the wolf’s fate would be decided by state authorities. The local government said it had spoken to the State Commission of Natural Parks and Fauna (Cepanaf) to review its security protocols.
