MEXICO CITY – Mexico continued to record near-record rates of coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, and the huge demand for oxygen tubes has led to fraud, theft and other crimes against families trying to care for relatives at home.
Mexico recorded an almost record 1,743 deaths recently confirmed by Covid, bringing the total to more than 152,000 and 7,165 new infections.
Hospitals in some parts of Mexico are almost 90% full, forcing families to treat their relatives at home. But the oxygen tanks on which they depend have been the subject of thefts, kidnappings and fraud.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continued to fight the isolated virus in his apartment, and Deputy Secretary of Health, Hugo López-Gatell, said he was fine and “has minimal symptoms”.
“On Sunday he had a headache, but other than that he had no other symptoms” other than low fever, said López-Gatell.
While the president was being cared for by a team of renowned doctors and the richest man in the country was quickly admitted to a first-rate hospital, treatment for ordinary Mexicans remained difficult and dangerous.
The head of the country’s consumer protection agency, Ricardo Sheffield, reported on Tuesday that hundreds of advertisements were found offering industrial oxygen cylinders – used by torch operators and welders – for medical use.
“These are stolen cylinders, for industrial use, you can’t use them to breathe,” said Sheffield. In other cases, fraudsters advertised excessive-priced oxygen tanks or concentrators or accepted deposits and then disappeared.
“You are throwing your money away and they are unlikely to deliver anything,” he said.
Sheffield said the police forced the removal of 700 Facebook pages and 100 internet offers that involved fraudulent or abusive offers of oxygen equipment. There have been several armed robberies of oxygen cylinders in recent weeks in Mexico and hijackings of trucks delivering the cylinders.
And on Tuesday, Mexico City police arrested a couple posing as sellers of disinfectant liquids and gels whose use skyrocketed in the pandemic. As soon as a potential client showed up at the apartment he was using, the man and woman would kidnap the person and demand a ransom. The police believe they were involved in at least three of these crimes.
Sheffield said the government has reached an agreement with companies that produce oxygen to purify and certify their products so that up to 70% of what normally goes into industrial use could be used to treat patients.
He also said that northern states could start importing oxygen from the United States.
Above all, he urged Mexicans who bought canisters as a precaution, or who had finished using them, to hand them over so that others could use them, noting “Return a life-saving tank”.
Although there are long lines at oxygen supply points, officials said the biggest problem is the lack of tanks to store the gas.
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