Mexico won’t restrict flights from UK in light of new virus strain Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell says the WHO recommends against the measure Published on Tuesday, December 22, 2020

 

Mexico won’t restrict flights from UK in light of new virus strain

Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell says the WHO recommends against the measure

Published on Tuesday, December 22, 2020

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The federal government won’t restrict flights from the United Kingdom in light of the new, more contagious coronavirus strain circulating in that country, Deputy Health Minister Hugo López-Gatell said Tuesday.

“The World Health Organization explicitly advises against shutting down flights from the United Kingdom because there is no evidence that this [strain] represents an additional threat,” he told reporters at President López Obrador’s morning press conference.

“… Stopping flights wouldn’t make a specific contribution to reducing the risk,” López-Gatell said.

The deputy minister said that the new virus strain, which U.K. authorities say could be up to 70% more transmissible than the original one, has possibly already spread widely around the world.

He acknowledged that there is evidence that the new strain is more contagious but said there is no proof that it causes a more serious Covid-19 illness, is resistant to vaccines or is not detected by Covid-19 tests.

Unlike many countries around the world, Mexico has not restricted flights from any foreign nation during the coronavirus pandemic. Neither foreign travelers nor Mexicans returning home are required to quarantine upon arrival in the country.

In contrast to Mexico, several countries in the region have decided to suspend flights from the U.K. They include Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Canada and Peru.

The new strain was identified in the U.K. in September but authorities didn’t disclose that knowledge until December 14.

Meanwhile, the French embassy in Mexico has advised French citizens not to travel here due to the deteriorating coronavirus situation. (More new cases have been reported in December than any other month.)

The embassy acknowledged in a statement that there are no restrictions on French citizens entering Mexico but explained that the country’s coronavirus situation has worsened. The embassy “energetically advises against traveling to Mexico from France,” the statement said.

“The epidemic [in Mexico] has spread at a high speed for several weeks,” said Ambassador Jean-Pierre Asvazadourian.

“Many states of the country are at the maximum alert [level] and the hospital occupancy rate is concerning,” he said.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Mexico, saying that there is a “very high level of Covid-19 in Mexico.”

But United States Ambassador Christopher Landau said subsequently that traveling in Mexico is safe during the coronavirus pandemic if one follows sanitary protocols established by the destination where one travels.

Mexico’s accumulated case tally currently stands at 1.32 million while the official Covid-19 death toll is 118,598.

Source: Infobae (sp), Milenio (sp) 

The joy of Christmas in Mexico is learning to appreciate the unexpected Christmas is about rituals, but surprises create the memories By Lydia Carey Published on Wednesday, December 23, 2020

  Christmas in Mexico City can be a gaudier affair than in some small towns.

The joy of Christmas in Mexico is learning to appreciate the unexpected

Christmas is about rituals, but surprises create the memories

By Lydia Carey

Published on Wednesday, December 23, 2020

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On my first Christmas in Mexico, I was convinced that midnight Mass was what I needed to feel festive.

The small town where I lived had a beautiful pink-tinted cathedral that was lit up inside with enough Christmas lights, blinking at enough different speeds, that I felt I might just have an aneurysm watching them. A friend from Australia came along, and she brought a friend from London and her friend’s two parents, who were Hindu. We were quite the troop, sitting as close as we could to the back row, hoping to be inconspicuous as the only foreigners in attendance. Unfortunately for the very nervous father, he ended up at the end of the row that met with the center aisle. As passing parishioners handed out little cups of confetti, he looked at me with terror in his eyes.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” he whispered.

“Just throw it at the baby Jesus when he comes by,” I whispered back.

This provoked anxiety that I have rarely seen in a grown man. I was about to offer to switch places, but it was too late. The baby Jesus was already being carried down the aisle on his way to his mother Mary’s arms at the front of the altar. Suffice it to say, the confetti throwing from our row was a bit of a bust.

When I was a kid all I ever wanted was for each Christmas to be exactly the same as the last. The consistency – the ritual, the traditions – were all an integral part of the holiday’s joy for me.  Over the years, my Christmases in Mexico have taught me to appreciate the unexpected and made me realize that surprises, good and bad, are what make the memories.

At posadas, a costumed Joseph and Mary ask neighbors for room at the inn.

One year, Juan the butcher invited me and my then partner to a celebration known as a posada at his house just a few doors down from ours. At that point, I didn’t even really know what a posada was. The word means “inn.”

The event starts with a parade of neighbors who go from door to door, singing songs that were not unlike carols.

The pageantry reenacts the Virgin Mary and Joseph going from inn to inn in Bethlehem, looking for a place where Mary — ripe with child and tired from her journey — might rest for the night. Mary and Joseph are turned away by homes in the neighborhood several times before the last house they visit that night lets them in. Once inside, the parading troupe is greeted with piñatas and sweets and tangy, hot ponche (punch) all around with a bit of tequila tipped into the mug for adults.

Being new to the posada tradition, we were nervous about what we should bring, how we should act, but those things melted away when Juan, his wife and their half-dozen kids welcomed us with smiling faces and the heated exuberance that comes with a lively party and a little bit of liquor.

We stood at the edge of their garage, doors wide open to the street, and watched the children desperately trying to break the piñata while adults looked on with the wistful smiles of their own childhoods remembered. It was only my second Christmas away from my family — even in college I mostly made it home for the holidays — and the worry that I might feel lonely or nostalgic dissipated with the joy of those hardworking families and neighbors taking the night to just relax and revel in Christmas.

The Christmas that taught me about Mexican nativity scenes came with an invitation to help Cris and the women in her family make hundreds of tamales in a single afternoon. Each year, one family oversaw making the tamales for the Christmas pilgrims that would parade around town, and its residents had an insatiable love for them; at least three or four were needed for each person.

A blow-up nativity scene awaiting a loving home.

By the time we arrived in their village of 50 families, the corn masa was already ground and mixed, ready to be spread onto dried corn husks. All you needed to add was a smear of red or green salsa and a sliver of chicken or pork; then, presto, it went into one of the six massive steamers waiting for the holiday parcels.

A massive nativity scene had been erected in their living room a few days before. It had elements that you might imagine — the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the wise men, a few farm animals — but there were also ducks, a wishing well, elephants, camels, a tiny model pigsty, a few cartoon figurines for good measure, angels, dogs and cats. All this was laid out in an undulating plain constructed from particleboard and some kind of modeling material to create hills in the scene the size of a small dining room table and covered in decorative straw. There were rivers, hills, fences and bridges. It looked more like an entire Bethlehem than the simple nativity scenes of my youth. This suddenly became one of my favorite Mexican Christmas traditions ever.

When we moved to Mexico City, Christmas lost some of its small-town charm. Instead of posadas it was the monster light displays in the zócalo that meant Christmas was here, as did images of holly and snowflakes that didn’t seem completely coherent in the heat and sunshine of the capital’s mild December.

One year, we went to see the skating rink set up in the middle of the central plaza, where millions of Mexico City kids in t-shirts waited in line for hours for their 30 minutes on the ice. In the evening it got cool enough to grab two piping hot chocolates from Sanborns and sit on the steps of the Guardiola Building, listening to a jazz quartet’s impromptu performance on Madero St., a pedestrian walkway. Shoppers were out picking up last-minute purchases, and no one could help but stop and listen to that angelic music reverberating off the colonial facades of the historic center.

Each year that I have lived in Mexico City, my favorite Christmas activity has been visiting the markets and their winding romerías — outdoor markets that sell blinding sets of Christmas lights, decorations, poinsettias and fresh-cut Christmas trees. It’s a little painful for an environmentalist like myself to see all those trees that by mid-January will decorate the curbs of the entire city as they wait to be trashed, but the smell of aisles and aisles of Douglas firs and spruce is unmistakably intoxicating. I liked to hit up the big markets for the colors but take to my local, smaller Mercado Medellín to make my final purchases. More than once I lugged a tree taller than myself on a tiny dolly the 10 blocks from the market to my house, then the four flights up to my apartment, where its tight spaces would immediately fill with the smell of pine.

A new Christmas tree from Mexico City’s Medellín market.

Last year I spent Christmas with my parents and boyfriend in Bacalar.

“Christmas in the Caribbean!” I promised them, even though during the first several nights, we froze in the beach house, which was unprepared for anything colder than about 27 C and had no blankets.

The cold didn’t so much snap as flicker, and in a few days, it was tropical again. My mother, as our family is wont to do, brought all the traditions with her that she could, including stockings. We had no fireplace to put them on, so we hung them on curtain rods and chair backs. We tried to make our traditional sub sandwiches, but it turns out that pepper jack cheese and old-fashioned loaf are not that easy to come by in Mexico, so we made do with manchego and sliced turkey. We did succeed in watching the family classic, A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, with a tiny portable projector and a makeshift screen made from a sheet, but sitting in our tank tops and shorts, I never felt farther away from the snowy, cold London on the screen.

That Christmas reminded me of another Mexico Christmas, years before, in a different relationship and with a different family, that I spent in Manzanillo on the Pacific coast.

It might have been the hottest Christmas I can remember (except the one I spent in Buenos Aires during their worst heatwave in 20 years). My girlfriend’s family had come from Argentina to celebrate with us, and I was insistent on getting a tree to decorate. I drove her crazy for days going from big-box store to big-box store until I found an extremely overpriced and sad-looking fake spruce.

We made ornaments with the kids, who were over the moon about the glitter and when I pulled out my mom-approved stockings in the morning, overflowing with gifts and nonsense, I was sure their heads would explode; gifts in Argentina are mainly given for Three Kings Day, and this was like celebrating twice!

One way to stay cool attending a warm-weather Christmas is with picadas.

We sweated out Christmas night on the patio, drinking ice-cold white wine and staying cool with a picada, an assortment of cured meats, cheese and olives, while sending Chinese floating lanterns into the air, wishing for brighter things for the New Year.

Because of Covid, I won’t be going back to the wintry north this year to see my family for Christmas. After almost a year of quarantine, the prospect of gathering around the old yule log to celebrate sounds awfully nice, but after so many Christmases spent in my adopted country, I know that there is bound to be some little detail that has yet to amaze me.

And I can count among my precious gifts this year that the people I love are at home, safe and healthy in front of their fires and that I will be enjoying Christmas in Mexico once again.

Lydia Carey is a regular contributor to Mexico News Daily.

Mexico News Today Wednesday, December 23, 2020

 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2020

Study predicts January Covid cases will collapse Mexico City's hospital system    Academics predict that by the middle of next month, demand for hospital beds in the metropolitan area will be 50% higher than capacity. FULL STORY RELATED: Authorities in Morelos warned that a lockdown was imminent if anti-Covid measures were not followed. FULL STORY

Four-year housing renewal plan aims high An average of 119 homes will need to be renovated every day during the next four years to restore 175,000 abandoned social housing units. FULL STORY

US tourists swarming to Quintana Roo: numbers are up 23% from last year Locked out of other popular tourist destinations due to the coronavirus pandemic at home, travelers are flocking to the Caribbean coast state. FULL STORY Mexico won’t restrict flights from UK in light of new virus strain Authorities say the World Health Organization doesn't suggest denying Brits entry despite the new, more contagious coronavirus strain circulating in their nation. FULL STORY Capital to offer interest-free loans to small businesses now shut down by Covid Mexico City has announced an 830-million-peso (US $41.3 million) economic support package for people affected by the capital's lockdown. FULL STORY With some creativity, a Covid Christmas party can be held on the internet With authorities urging Mexicans not to gather with families and friends this holiday, many people are turning to online celebrations. FULL STORY 3 civil servants suspended after demanding bribe for payment of flood aid A video showed government employees in Tabasco not-too-subtly demanding a bribe from a flood victim. FULL STORY OPINION After a year of tragedy, peace and hope in 2021 lie in looking forward  The winter solstice was a potent metaphor in 2020 — the longest and darkest night in an extra sad and scary year — but the light follows, Sarah DeVries writes. FULL STORY MEXICO LIFE  The joy of Christmas in Mexico is learning to appreciate the unexpected As a child, Lydia Carey wanted each Christmas to be exactly like the last. But Christmases in Mexico have taught her to relish surprises, she writes. FULL STORY Logistics blamed in Covid vaccination delay Mexico did not begin inoculating health workers against Covid-19 on Tuesday after a first batch of the Pfizer vaccine did not arrive. FULL STORY Finding oxygen a challenge for families treating Covid patients at home As coronavirus cases continue to increase in Mexico City, stores that refill oxygen tanks are reporting shortages. FULL STORY Deputy health minister sees ‘holes’ in report that says government misled citizens Hugo López-Gatell has rejected the conclusions of a New York Times investigation claiming that the government hid from citizens the severity of the virus situation in Mexico City. FULL STORY ADVERTISEMENT For second consecutive year, Guanajuato leads nation in homicides Even with 2020 not yet over, the state is already Mexico's most violent for another year with 4,190 murders between January and November. FULL STORY León, Guanajuato, offers free internet on buses Bus riders can surf the internet while they ride in León, the first city in Latin America to offer free 4.5G Wi-Fi on public transit. FULL STORY MEXICO LIFE  Musical event brings opera, Christmas spirit to Ixtapa Mexican musicians performed for a concert on the beach in Zihuatanejo, bringing a feeling of Christmas in a family setting, Elisabeth Ashe writes. FULL STORY MEXICO LIFE  Mexico’s speedbumps are a noble but misguided attempt at road safety Topes try to quell Mexican drivers' love for speed by threatening to take out a car's undercarriage, Joseph Sorrentino writes. FULL STORY

Dear Reader, We're taking a short break for the Christmas holiday this week so you won't hear from us again until Monday, Dec. 28. On behalf of everyone at Mexico News Daily I wish you a very happy and safe holiday. Tony Richards Publisher

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