General News

World Health Organization (WHO) President Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has urged Mexico to take the Covid-19 epidemic “very seriously,” after seeing the number of cases and deaths double between mid and late November.

Guadalajara’s five Best Buy stores are set to close after Best Buy Co. Inc. announced that it will be shutting all of its outlets in Mexico at the end of December.

Despite more than 100,000 Covid-19 deaths and a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) asked Mexico to take the health emergency more seriously (see story below), President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador defended his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying his administration’s strategy has allowed the country “to gradually emerge from adversity.”

This week Bloomberg released a “Covid Resilience Ranking” of the world’s 53 largest economies, evaluating their success at containing the coronavirus with the least amount of social and economic disruption.

One might forgive U.S. foreign service personnel for being more than a bit miffed with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who this week announced plans to host a yuletide coronavirus “superspreader” party for almost 1,000 people in Washington D.C.

U.S. and Mexican authorities announced on Thursday that the two nations’ land borders will remain closed to non-essential travel at least until December 21 due to the ongoing coronavirus emergency.

Mexico will receive 250,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine sometime before the end of the month, José Luis Alomía Zegarra, director of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health, announced on December 2.

The Mexican Senate Thursday approved by a margin of 82 to 18, with seven abstentions, a bill that would create a legal market for cannabis in Mexico, while relaxing laws governing the recreational use of the substance to permit users to carry 28 grams of marijuana and cultivate up to four plants in their homes.