MEXICO CITY — Mexico continued to publish near-record rates of coronavirus deaths Tuesday, and the big need for oxygen cylinders has actually resulted in scams, burglaries and other criminal activities versus households attempting to take care of loved ones in your home.
Mexico published a near-record 1,743 recently verified Covid deaths, bringing the overall to over 152,000, and 7,165 brand-new infections.
Hospitals in some parts of Mexico are nearly 90% complete, requiring households to treat their loved ones in your home. But the oxygen tanks they depend on have actually been the things of thefts, hijackings and scams.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continued battling the infection in seclusion at his apartment or condo, and Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell stated he was succeeding and “has minimal symptoms.”
“On Sunday he had a headache, but apart from that he hasn’t had any other symptom” besides a low fever, López-Gatell stated.
While the president was getting care from a group of leading medical professionals, and the nation’s wealthiest guy rapidly was confessed to a leading health center, treatment for average Mexicans stayed tough and hazardous.
The head of the nation’s customer defense firm, Ricardo Sheffield, reported Tuesday that numerous advertisements have actually been discovered using commercial oxygen cylinders — utilized by torch and welding operators — for medical usage.
“These are stolen cylinders, for industrial use, you can’t use them to breathe,” Sheffield stated. In other cases, scammers marketed tanks or oxygen concentrators at extreme rates, or accepted deposits and after that vanished.
“You are throwing away your money and they probably won’t deliver anything,” he stated.
Sheffield stated cops have actually required the elimination of 700 Facebook pages and 100 web uses that were discovered to include deceptive or violent deals of oxygen devices. There have actually been numerous heists of oxygen cylinders in current weeks in Mexico, and hijackings of trucks providing the cylinders.
And on Tuesday, Mexico City cops apprehended a couple who impersonated sellers of disinfectant liquids and gels whose usage has actually escalated in the pandemic. Once a prospective consumer appeared to the apartment or condo they were utilizing, the guy and female would abduct the individual and require a ransom. Police think they were associated with a minimum of 3 such criminal activities.
Sheffield stated the federal government had actually reached an arrangement with business that produce oxygen to cleanse and license their item so that as much as 70% of what typically chooses commercial usage, might be utilized to deal with clients rather.
He likewise stated that northern states might begin to import oxygen from the United States.
Most of all, he prompted Mexicans who purchased cylinders as a safety measure, or who had actually ended up utilizing them, to turn them in so others might utilize them, keeping in mind “Returning a tank saves lives.”
While there are long lines at oxygen-refill outlets, authorities have stated the larger issue is an absence of tanks to keep the gas in.
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