SENTENCING FOR CHAMPION-CAIN DELAYED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
The scheduled sentencing next week of former restaurateur Gina Champion-Cain on criminal conspiracy and securities fraud charges has been postponed until March 1 because of the ongoing surge in coronavirus cases.
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, in an order Monday, announced the delay, which he said is in keeping with a previous decision a few days ago to continue the suspension of jury trials and other in-person proceedings. All cases that had been scheduled for personal appearances up until Jan. 22 will now be rescheduled because of the regional stay-at-home order that has yet to be lifted by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Champion-Cain, at one time known for her portfolio of patiothemed eateries, was accused by the U.S. Attorney’s office of masterminding a yearslong, $400 million
sharply down. More U.S. tourists came to Quintana Roo during this pandemicstricken holiday season than a year earlier, when the world was just beginning to learn of the coronavirus. They accounted for 9 out of 10 foreign tourists, Vanegas said.
And they are staying longer, with some seemingly waiting out the pandemic at the beach, she said.
Officials strive to “create a tourist bubble that generates confidence in everything a tourist does,” Vanegas said, describing how the visitors move from the airport to a van to a hotel, and then to tours of sun-splashed archaeological sites certified by state health authorities.
“Where there could be risk is when they leave that bubble,” she said.
For example, the throbbing crowd that packed shoulder-to-shoulder — many not wearing masks — in downtown streets and clubs to ring in the New Year in Playa del Carmen, the lively beach town between Cancun and Tulum.
Indoor venues also pose a risk: Restaurants, theaters, salons and other businesses are permitted to operate at 60 percent capacity, and indoor gyms at 50 percent. Hotels can book at 70 percent capacity.
Evans, the Mississippi firefighter, said he was impressed by the health measures everywhere he went. “They’re taking temperatures when you enter the building and giving you hand sanitizer every place you go,“he said.
His friend, Gearald Green, a 32-year-old music producer from Jackson, where nearly everyone in his immediate circle of friends has been infected, said the climate and outdoor-focused beach living inspired confidence.
“I don’t have to try an extra amount to keep social distance because it’s the beach, it’s water and when you come out it’s not like a lot of people on top of one another,” he said.
Vanegas said the state health department aggressively traces any reported infections. Still, there are worrisome signs. The positivity rate on COVID-19 tests in the state is nearly 50 percent and the weekly number of COVID-19 deaths quadrupled from the week before sharply, pressure will build to Christmas to the week after, close beaches again like last according to federal governspring, spurring massive layment data. offs.
Health experts fear the When the pandemic arincrease in travel through rived in Mexico, big hotels the holiday season will likely started laying off workers lead to spikes in places that with what they called “solipreviously seemed to have it darity breaks.” Workers were under control. told it was temporary, that
“In the most popular they’d be hired back in a tourist destinations, you’re month and most were let go going to have epidemic activwithout the benefits they deity increase again in a big served. way,” said Dr. Mauricio RodThere was little debate riguez of the medical school over the health risks of proat Mexico’s National Autonomoting tourism versus the mous University, citing economic impact of losing all beach destinations like those jobs, said Alejandro Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, Palafox-Munoz, a professor Quintana Roo and the of tourism at the University Riviera Maya. of Quintana Roo. The people
The southern state of Oawho lost those jobs had no xaca, which draws tourists to choice but to go out and look its colonial capital as well as for new work to feed their its laid-back Pacific beaches, families, he said. had half the number of tourSaily Camacho, 25, had ists this holiday season as a worked at a beach club on the year earlier. State Tourism island of Cozumel for two Secretary Juan Carlos Riveyears, as a hostess, selling ra said that wasn’t bad contours and at the cash regissidering the pandemic. ter. Barely two weeks after
“We are going to enter in the first recorded COVID-19 an economic recession in infection in Mexico, she was terms of tourism in the comout of a job. ing months, not only in OaCamacho earned comxaca, in the whole country,” missions from selling tours Rivera said. and could make $110 on a
If infections good day. After she was laid increase off, she lived off her savings for a month, thinking that she’d be hired back. She put finishing her college degree on hold.
Her mother and two siblings lost their tourism sector jobs too. Her mother — and many others — tried to sustain themselves by selling food from their homes via social networks.
Her mother, a hotel chambermaid, finally started a new hotel job this month. After a long search, Camacho was hired as a cashier at a supermarket where it takes her almost two weeks to earn what she made on a good day at the beach club.
“Before, I was working to save for my future, to buy a house, a car,“Camacho said. “And now, honestly, I only work to get by, for food, for expenses.”
She still has concerns about the coronavirus, but admitted that she was buoyed by seeing tourists return. “To see tourists, truly, was something exciting, because it’s the sustenance for the island,” she said.