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Alfaro Warns of Shutdown If Jalisco Numbers Slip


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7 minutes ago, Mainecoons said:

And now the fan club is fully assembled, we can move on.  It is interesting to note Mr. Alfaro hasn't repeated his threats for two days.  Wonder if someone wised him up as to what the reaction of the Mexican community would be?

Inquiring minds want to know.  :D 

It's pinned to top of his FB page.  And as of yesterday he continued to answer questions and address comments at his page.

He said he'd decide on July 15th, after seeing the results.   

 

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The two Mexican business people I spoke with view it is as a threat and they both voted for him but both said they would not do so again.  All of our Mexican help has turned against him and the Chapala government.  Last time they took to the streets, both quickly backed down.

I read the thing in both languages and IMO the tone is definitely threatening.  Also IMO I think he is making a major miscalculation if he thinks he can lock these people down again.

So we'll see what happens in 6 days.  I'm betting it was bluster.  

I think the expat community has a case of tunnel vision here and does not understand that the Mexican community is much more concerned with economic survival at this point than they are a bug that still has affected a very small percentage of the population, mainly in cities at that.

While the relief efforts of this community are laudable, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the hardship being experienced in our own Mexican community, let alone the larger one where there is almost no real relief effort.

That's my opinion.  No one here has really spelled out why they think the public would go along with this given the already high level of noncompliance.

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Unfortunately the non-compliance seems more likely among the entitled middle class and the lower classes suffer. I look at the statistics for other states in Mexico and am grateful to live in Jalisco where the governor has the courage to try to keep this pandemic in check.

Latin America is one of the regions where the virus is still spiking. Areas of Africa and Asia are showing sudden increases while countries where it was done right are flattening the curve and able to reopen.

Something to remember is that this virus is not at all like a regular flu. The statistics from WHO and CDC show that about 20% of cases need hospitalization, about 30% have mild to serious symptoms but can be treated at home and the rest show no symptoms. What they are finding is that younger people without pre-conditions are getting blood clots and have strokes in increasing numbers. People who are not hospitalized are often very sick for 3+ weeks, not just a few days. Doctors are finding thru CT-scans that many people with and without symptoms are showing various degrees of lung damage. It is not known if the damage is temporary or permanent and won't be until these people can be retested in 6 months or a year.

And yes, the anti-body tests are a work in progress at best. The test results being distributed are virus tests not anti-body tests.

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2 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

And now the fan club is fully assembled, we can move on.  It is interesting to note Mr. Alfaro hasn't repeated his threats for two days.  Wonder if someone wised him up as to what the reaction of the Mexican community would be?

Inquiring minds want to know.  :D 

Actually, he held a video conference just after 4 pm yesterday, (I could see Moy Anaya in the background) in which the governor updated the rules for this weekend and reminded everyone what may happen if statistics don't turn around on the 15th.  In  brief:

 NEW RULES for this weekend are in effect.
 
• Hotel capacity is reduced to 25%; tourists should plan on staying away from tourist destinations. He specifically mentions the destinations of Chapala, Tequila, Tapalpa, Mazamitla, as well as some locales within the city itself. 
 
• Restaurant capacity is reduced to 50%.
 
• NO BARS, no way. Bars that hope to disguise themselves as restaurants by serving food to get around the mandate will be shuttered.
 
• Proper wearing of facemasks in public (including spaces such as plazas)  is MANDATORY at all times. There are no exceptions, and municipalities are to sanction violators. (He gave no specifics on what the penalties are.) 
 
 
A reminder: If residents don’t significantly improve their practices of social distancing, wearing of face masks, and reducing mobility [NB: which is tracked by the Feds via Google, Twitter, and Waze] so that the hospitalization occupancy and number of infections decrease from this week's count through next Tuesday, he will enforce his Botón de Emergencia, implementing a two-week lockdown. 
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We were at Costco this morning, while we were in line the lady in front of us struck up a conversation with us.  She brought up the governor and referred to his message as threatening and was critical of that.    She, like us, was there buying some supplies in case they do decide to lock us down.  She said who it really impacts is the lower income families who don’t have the resources to fill their cabinets ahead of time and while the stores may remain open during the week, closing grocery stores on the weekends would very negatively impact those that purchase their food daily.  She isn’t an expat.  

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2 hours ago, MtnMama said:

Unfortunately the non-compliance seems more likely among the entitled middle class and the lower classes suffer. I look at the statistics for other states in Mexico and am grateful to live in Jalisco where the governor has the courage to try to keep this pandemic in check.

Latin America is one of the regions where the virus is still spiking. Areas of Africa and Asia are showing sudden increases while countries where it was done right are flattening the curve and able to reopen.

Something to remember is that this virus is not at all like a regular flu. The statistics from WHO and CDC show that about 20% of cases need hospitalization, about 30% have mild to serious symptoms but can be treated at home and the rest show no symptoms. What they are finding is that younger people without pre-conditions are getting blood clots and have strokes in increasing numbers. People who are not hospitalized are often very sick for 3+ weeks, not just a few days. Doctors are finding thru CT-scans that many people with and without symptoms are showing various degrees of lung damage. It is not known if the damage is temporary or permanent and won't be until these people can be retested in 6 months or a year.

And yes, the anti-body tests are a work in progress at best. The test results being distributed are virus tests not anti-body tests.

Not sure where your hospitalization rates come from.  Could you reference?  Those numbers seem to correspond only to the most vulnerable, not the general population.  Also, how can we know what the real hospitalization rate is since there are obviously a high number of undiagnosed cases where symptoms are mild enough no contact with the medical system is made.  The only hospitalization data that is really verifiable is the overall rate within the population.  That cumulative figure stands at 102.5 per hundred thousand which translates into a percentage of 0.1025 percent.  And note that is total hospitalizations to date, hence it is cumulative.

A lot of hospitalization data here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html

Here is Mexico I believe it is known a lot of cases are going undetected since people even the more sick ones may not seek help and the rate of testing is so low.

Also, CV does share a number of similarities with the flu.  Good comparative table here  Not correct to say it is "not at all" like the flu.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/flu-vs-covid19.htm

I don't see any basis for that statement about the "entitled middle classes" causing others to suffer.  I see a lot of people on the streets in Chapala obviously not middle class not wearing masks.  Again, where is the data to support this statement about class or the middle class causing the lower class to suffer?  If anything I'd be willing to bet the level of compliance is higher in the better educated middle class.  

 

 

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When people refuse to comply with what are straightforward, easy to comply with directives, then yes, public officials who actually care about keeping the public safe need to get tough and make it clear that if people refuse to comply willingly, they will be forced to comply. Jalisco is lucky to have a governor intelligent and concerned enough, and who clearly understands measures necessary to contain a pandemic and prevent unnecessary deaths. Everyone everywhere should be so lucky.

It's no different than seat belt and drunk driving checks and fines. It's about being proactive about public safety, the intention isn't to curtail freedom, the intention is to save lives. Anyone who can't understand that is a moron.

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The hospitalization rates were on CNN when the host was asking the FDA spokesperson about Trump's 99.9% no symptoms comment. The not like the flu comment was from the multiple side effects that keep being discovered from lung damage to neurological to pulmonary to mental health. Here is a good article: https://www.vox.com/2020/5/8/21251899/coronavirus-long-term-effects-symptoms

The middle-class comment came from observing the crowding of beaches and restaurants and similar places not usually the playgrounds of the poor. You are right, masks are not being worn by way too many people in general.

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There seem to be some assumptions here that it is only the local Mexicans and visiting Tapatios who are  ignoring the necessary protocols (mask wearing, social distancing, etc.). While it is true that I see less and less Mexicans obeying the protocols, I also see many expats doing the same. When I visit local restaurants, as well as the Ajijic Plaza, I regularly see groups of expats sitting closely together, or standing closely together chatting, and not wearing masks. Often they are talking loudly and laughing, potentially spreading covid-19 for a considerable distance in all directions. 

I am a regular at these places and many of those I am describing are also regulars, some of whom I have NEVER seen wearing a mask, even at the height of the earlier shutdown. Those who do wear masks, often don't wear them properly, but let them hang from one ear or down under their chins, or with their noses uncovered. We should police our own behavior before we take exception to the behavior of the local people. We should also remember that wearing a mask is more about protecting others from ME than protecting me from others. I have no particular right to behave in ways that endanger others, Mexicans or expats.

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33 minutes ago, MtnMama said:

The middle-class comment came from observing the crowding of beaches and restaurants and similar places not usually the playgrounds of the poor.

Well, you don't live in a beach town. I can assure you "the poor" descend on the beaches in massive numbers in Mexico. They come by the busload, bring all their own food with them, don't spend money at local restaurants, but buy groceries and prepare their own food, they spend the days on the beach and return to sleep in the seats on the buses at night. You can easily count 140 of these buses parked up by the OXXO and anywhere else they are allowed to park on Semana Santa, Christmas holidays, and when the kids get out of school in the summer. 

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2 minutes ago, cookj5 said:

There seem to be some assumptions here that it is only the local Mexicans and visiting Tapatios who are  ignoring the necessary protocols (mask wearing, social distancing, etc.).

I'm just blown away by how this virus has made the infantile attitudes of supposed adults so evident. Regardless of their nationality. 

The "I don't have to, you can't make me" idiocy is no different than a teenager railing against their responsible parents' insistence on knowing their kids' whereabouts, who they are hanging out with, and imposing curfews and consequences.

And the governor's statements about possibly having to enforce lockdowns again is what I would call a consequence, not a threat.

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I'm seeing the same Jim, not only locally but also when I go into Guad.  

Exactly right mudgirl.  The holiday beach crowds are not the middle class folks. 

As for protecting with a mask I would disagree somewhat because a decent mask properly worn and not too close to others protect me as well.  I know I don't have it, I don't know if they do.

Sorry Alex, I don't see a view or measures that are so widely ignored as realistic or intelligent in the slightest.  Telling low income shop keepers they have to buy $200 thermometers in order to try and reopen and survive is nonsense.  I've yet to go into anywhere and have a shop keeper take my temperature.

Intelligent and realistic should have a much higher level of cooperation from the public IMO.

Instead, I think a lot of these regulations and bureaucratic nonsense not only discouraged compliance they show a government that is badly out of touch with and ignorant about the just plain folks.  I'm hearing a lot of resentment and anger out there.

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31 minutes ago, Mainecoons said:

I'm seeing the same Jim, not only locally but also when I go into Guad.  

Exactly right mudgirl.  The holiday beach crowds are not the middle class folks. 

As for protecting with a mask I would disagree somewhat because a decent mask properly worn and not too close to others protect me as well.  I know I don't have it, I don't know if they do.

Sorry Alex, I don't see a view or measures that are so widely ignored as realistic or intelligent in the slightest.  Telling low income shop keepers they have to buy $200 thermometers in order to try and reopen and survive is nonsense.  I've yet to go into anywhere and have a shop keeper take my temperature.

Intelligent and realistic should have a much higher level of cooperation from the public IMO.

Instead, I think a lot of these regulations and bureaucratic nonsense not only discouraged compliance they show a government that is badly out of touch with and ignorant about the just plain folks.  I'm hearing a lot of resentment and anger out there.

I did not mean to say that masks offer no protection to me, although I can understand that my wording implied that. However, they do offer greater protection to others from me, than the reverse. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/06/21/880832213/yes-wearing-masks-helps-heres-why 

Also, if you have been infected, but are asymptomatic, how can you say "I know I don't have it, I don't know if they do." Unless you were tested only a few minutes ago, and before you interacted with anyone else,  you could well be an unintentional asymptomatic carrier, spreading covid-19 like Typhoid Mary (assuming you don't follow protocols).

While I can say that I have not experienced temperature checks in small shops, I also have not visited that many during the pandemic. I have certainly been checked at Walmart, various restaurants, my doctor's office, and some other locations. I would agree that if the government is going to require an expensive gadget to check temperatures, they should be provided free to small businesses or. alternatively, some sort of financial aid in buying them. Otherwise, compliance will be low. 

The governor's message does sound a bit harsh. However, I have seen numerous previous statements from him about how people are not abiding by the protocols. He has particularly focused Tapatios who load up on the weekends and holidays and head out for attractive spots like Lake Chapala. The clear implication in the previous statements has been that voluntary compliance is great, but other action may be necessary if it does not happen. 

I read in his message a lot of frustration and anger at the irresponsibility of so many who should know better, unless they have been in a coma for the last few months. The time to stop a spike in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is before it gets well under way, not after. We have certainly seen this in the irresponsibly late closings and early openings in some states up North, with the inevitable tragic consequences.

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10 hours ago, kam said:

Sorry, I was responding to Mr. Coons earlier post. I am a Mudgirl fan and would not diss her. Mr. Coons I would, and do, diss. 

Have you noticed how one person can be out of step with the platoon, but his take is, " I´m in step, the rest of you are out of step".

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7 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

As for protecting with a mask I would disagree somewhat because a decent mask properly worn and not too close to others protect me as well.  I know I don't have it, I don't know if they do.

All the scientific information says that the mask somewhat protects the wearer, but is far more helpful in protecting others from you. That's why complying with wearing a mask isn't about personal freedom, but social responsibility.  

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Of all the enlightened and intelligent people on this board, does anybody here truly and honestly believe that they are going to find a cure or develop a vaccine for the Coronavirus?  If you research, you will most likely learn that the Coronavirus has been around for decades and that it is very close cousins with the Common Flu, different but yet very similar in many ways.  The reason why it is often times called the Novel Coronavirus is because the mutation out today is a new mutation of the virus not because the virus is new.  The coronavirus like all other viruses are constantly mutating and changing.  In fact, currently, scientists are saying that the more it seems to mutate, the more weaker it is becoming, for now at least.  The news only wants to talk about the surge of about how the virus is running rampant through the population, more and more people are becoming infected at alarming rates.  I believe that is true, very true and unavoidable.  But they are not talking about the death toll, the death toll has dropped astronomically in recent weeks.  I was just reading an article about Sweden, the country that refused to close down.  Their death rate was 5 times higher than their Scandinavian sisters but the past few weeks their death rate has dropped to insignificant amounts, less than 6 a day are dying, less so than their neighbors who actually shut down.  Does anybody even believe that this virus is going away in the near future?  Most scientists are now saying that the virus is most likely going to be the new normal and will not be going away anytime soon.  Well, there are a group of people that believe that the virus will just simply disappear very very soon, who are those people?  Trump and his supporters are the only people that believe the virus is just going to magically disappear very very soon.  After decades and decades of trying we have yet to discover a cure or reliable vaccine for the Common Flu.  The flu mutates rapidly every couple of months, just like the Coronavirus.  Every year they attempt to make vaccines, by guessing which mutations will be in the general public each winter, their accuracy rate is roughly 50% each year at preventing it.  Some years, it prevents more deaths and other years it barely works at all.  Why do you think a Coronavirus vaccine will be any different?  Even Fauci and all the other leading experts have serious doubts about creating a viable vaccine anytime in the near future.  I guess what I am trying to say is that if the shutting down of the country didn't work the first time around when very few people even had the virus, what makes you think it will work the second time around after it has been surging rampantly through the population?  Sweden found out that those that are susceptible to the virus, those that are going to die will die and nothing will prevent it.  In Sweden those that were sick and susceptible have mostly all died, sad as it is, but nothing else could be done.  Now their death rate is at almost zero.  Don't you realize that the disease isn't going anywhere, the only thing the quarantine does is kill the economy and the lives of the young, but it isn't saving anybody, it is just drawing out the inevitable,   sooner or later all those that are susceptible will eventually get it, it is just buying time, but time for what?  A cure that will never materialize?  Eventually, everybody will have to come out of their sanitized bubble to get money from the ATM or to go shopping for something, you will be in contact with the Coronavirus, the infection rate is already so high, there is no way to reverse it.  It is just a matter of time.  Closing down Jalisco again will do nothing to reverse the damage, it is only putting off the unavoidable.  The virus has to and will most definitely run its course through the general population, whether you like it or not.  Another shut down will not protect you or save you, it will only hurt the poor people and the young.  If you are susceptible to the virus, you are most assuredly  going to get it, in the long run, just like all of us.  Just like the flu runs through most of the population each winter.

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Yes Mudgirl, the obvious truth is sad, very sad.  My post was sad.  But there is nothing you or I or we can do to stop what is happening on the ground.  Most assuredly the virus is going to and will do what is has set out to do.  There is nothing we can do, short of even turning Jalisco into a police state with the military on every block will reverse the direction that the virus is taking, it has gone way too far.  We must accept reality.

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Just now, dichosalocura said:

Yes Mudgirl, the obvious truth is sad, very sad.  My post was sad.  But there is nothing you or I or we can do to stop what is happening on the ground.  Most assuredly the virus is going to and will do what is has set out to do.  There is nothing we can do, short of even turning Jalisco into a police state with the military on every block will reverse the direction that the virus is taking, it has gone way too far.  We must accept reality.

Are you unaware that there are places in the world that enforced stringent lockdown measures and reduced their cases to none? And that new cases only appeared when outsiders entered the community? There are ways to contain and eradicate a disease without a vaccine. The only reason that coronavirus is still running rampant is that there has been no worldwide co-ordinated approach and that people are too ignorant and stubborn to comply.  

And are you unaware that death isn't the only danger from this virus? That people are experiencing long-term effects from brain damage, other nervous disorders, organs affected, etc. etc? 

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