BajaNomad

'Sanitizing tunnels' await travelers heading into Sonora

BajaNomad - 5-9-2020 at 06:21 PM

May 7, 2020

Drivers entering Nogales, Sonora, from Arizona now go through a disinfecting process to ward off the coronavirus.

After crossing through a port of entry, drivers and passenger get out of their cars and walk through inflatable tunnels that were put up on the side of the road Wednesday by the municipal government of Nogales.

Inside the “sanitizing tunnels,” as Mexican officials called them, drivers and passengers are sprayed with disinfectant. They then walk back to their cars and continue on their way.

...The spray uses Biozinc, which protects against infection for up to 24 hours, a Mexican health official told the Sonoran newspaper El Imparcial.

Many of the local cases of the coronavirus were found in Mexican citizens who had traveled to the United States and returned to Mexico, Mayor Jesus Antonio Pujol Irastorza said in the video. Officials already are doing medical inspections of pedestrian travelers coming from the United States through ports of entry, he said.

https://tucson.com/news/local/sanitizing-tunnels-await-all-t...

Sounds Amazing !

MrBillM - 5-9-2020 at 08:09 PM

A Viral Delousing !

Why hasn't the U.S. done something with this ? It's exactly the kind of miracle dosing (or, in this case, dousing) that El Presidente would love.

Amazon.com sells Bio Zinc in tablet form. As D.T. says .......... "It's worth a try. What have you got to lose ?"

paranewbi - 5-10-2020 at 08:04 AM

Not really anything new....just a new application.

We've all had our cars sprayed at the State crossing of Baja.

Back in the 70's, crossing from Belize into Guatemala, we were directed to a small building where we paid a couple of Quetzales and were told to stand against the building.

Pretty soon a guy with a back pack came out and pulled the rip cord and opened the drivers side door of my VW bus, stuck the three inch wide nozzle he was holding in the door while closing the door up to it.

He filled the van with a white cloud of insecticide ruining our large boxes of minute rice as well as any other item of food that we had which wasn't in a can.

My buddy (who could speak Spanish well) started yelling at the guy and telling him he just destroyed our food. This was the years the civil wars were going on in Guat, El Salvador and Nicaragua, so there was little food available.

The guy shrugged his shoulders and walked away. We through all of the food in a barrel trash can next to the building.

Have a good time in those "Sanitizing Tunnels"!!

ZipLine - 5-10-2020 at 08:33 AM

It didn't really destroy your food. You just needed to rinse it off.

This has been and still is a practice in many developing countries. Particularly for dealing with malaria. And some places - not so much any more - for hoof and mouth disease.

The nice-ities of Western countries does not always extend to places where life is more tenuous, more basic. These things tend to work, so they continue to do them

No, I did not do an extensive review of the literature for evidence. Just real life experience living in those places.

paranewbi - 5-10-2020 at 09:12 AM

Quote: Originally posted by ZipLine  
It didn't really destroy your food. You just needed to rinse it off.

This has been and still is a practice in many developing countries. Particularly for dealing with malaria. And some places - not so much any more - for hoof and mouth disease.

The nice-ities of Western countries does not always extend to places where life is more tenuous, more basic. These things tend to work, so they continue to do them

No, I did not do an extensive review of the literature for evidence. Just real life experience living in those places.


Pretty hard to trust the practices of a government who during that time were running over crops, defecating in wells, and 'dis-appearing people'. That is what was my experience surfing through Central America at the time and losing 30 pounds because of the lack of food.

Some years later (and not turning this into a 'religious' thing) the volunteers who provided medical care during that time and after, relayed their concerns for the repetitive ailments they surmised were from the chemicals ON the food the people ate.

I was working in orphanages at the time dealing with foreskin on orphans that had attached itself due to unsanitary health practices and not bathing...leading to problems years away when adults trying to have kids.

With all of the things we saw crossing multiple borders...there wasn't much we were going to trust the governments of those countries to safeguard our health. I'm not so sure I would those 'sanitizing tunnels' now in place.

Alm - 5-10-2020 at 10:58 AM

Quote: Originally posted by lencho  

Am I the only one questioning the suitability of this procedure?

They are disinfecting the surfaces while transmission is mostly person to person. In a private vehicle nobody will be touching it except for the driver and passengers, and those would have already infected each other.

paranewbi - 5-10-2020 at 11:59 AM

Quote: Originally posted by lencho  
Quote: Originally posted by paranewbi  
...foreskin on orphans that had attached itself due to unsanitary health practices...
It actually fused with the glans? How did they treat that? :O


The skin attached from sores that developed because the kids either didn't bath (orphanages have problems with older kids sexually abusing the younger and the kids feared isolation especially during a vulnerable bathing) or didn't wash that area properly by pulling back the skin cleansing under.

Once sores/infections occurred the wounds would heal attached with the extra skin attaching to the base skin. Without the ability to surgically repair this problem, the only way to treat it was to actually pull/tear/separate in very small increments the attached layers and then use mineral oil (only options in a third world setting) to allow healing.

Trying to keep this on an adult level is tough on this forum. We could see the future for these kids without intervention because the pre-teens were having those dreams at night most of us had at that age and would awaken screaming from the pain. Our work was mostly with the five to eight range as the older ones wouldn't allow us to be present (if they bathed) to direct them to cause themselves to do the procedure themselves with the forced separation.

This was an all boys orphanage by the way. I think today if the same situation was to occur I would refuse to help those boys for fear of being put in prison as a predator. We only had infrequent advice from medical personnel and none of us carried the weight of a medical license or degree.

Abuse wasn't isolated to boys either...we quit working with a girls orphanage (only providing material support) when two of the thirteen year olds got pregnant and we found the woman running the place was prostituting them out in a shack near the orphanage.

Now, what was the topic of this thread? Oh yea...

[Edited on 5-10-2020 by paranewbi]

ZipLine - 5-10-2020 at 05:15 PM

Not "everyone". Just men.

TMW - 5-11-2020 at 03:26 PM

This seems more like voodoo science/medicine from a witch doctor.

Hook - 5-21-2020 at 07:46 AM

My understanding is that it is completely voluntary, at this point. You are "asked" if you would like to enter the tunnel.

BTW, at the Nogales crossings, most anyone can enter Mexico for non-essential reasons..........like visiting friends and relatives. So, extending the "border controls", at least in the case of entering Mexico, are routinely ignored.

There were several checkpoints that were preventing people from leaving or entering specific neighborhoods in the Guaymas/San Carlos area. But I believe they have all been taken down, according to friends down there.

Restaurants are open, no limiting of movement. It's pretty much back to business as usual.

Still many reports of major undercounting (lack of testing) of the incidence of the virus, throughout Mexico. Same goes for the number of purported dead. If the undercounting is true, and Mexico is opening back up, we should see a significant spike in deaths.

But probably not in new cases. Mexico is good at covering up numbers, in addition to the lack of testing.

Skipjack Joe - 5-21-2020 at 08:15 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Alm  
Quote: Originally posted by lencho  

Am I the only one questioning the suitability of this procedure?

They are disinfecting the surfaces while transmission is mostly person to person.


Bingo!

Quite right. This procedure provides little to no protection for the Mexicans from the entering tourists. A cough from said tourist will be just as effective, with or without the spray. Don't know what their thinking is. They must know this.

Mexico now has the 3rd fastest growing epidemic behind Brazil and Peru. Their curve is still in the logarithmic growth phase, which means it's going full bore as though nothing was being done about it.

Alm - 5-21-2020 at 10:54 AM

A month ago they admitted that the epidemic had entered Phase 3 - the most serious phase. The number of daily new cases is more-less linear but the total cases curve is not.
Graph 1 - total cases, graph 2 - daily new. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/mexico/

The publisher is not Mexican but the data are, so don't put much trust in it.

thebajarunner - 5-21-2020 at 11:25 AM

They must have upgraded the cat urine spray deal that costs you a buck at the Guerrero Negro monument.
At least you have sanitary wheels and tires...

JZ - 5-21-2020 at 11:40 AM

What kind of idiot thinks something like this up?

Lee - 5-21-2020 at 03:50 PM

Quote: Originally posted by thebajarunner  
They must have upgraded the cat urine spray deal that costs you a buck at the Guerrero Negro monument.
At least you have sanitary wheels and tires...


Read, probably here, about someone doing this.

At GN, I drive up and give the guy a buck, and wag my index finger while saying gracias, no. Guy says no? And I smile and say no. Then drive away. Works for me.

Might work in Sonora.