The governor of Jalisco, Enrique Alfaro, said this Sunday that the application of the state mechanism of the “emergency button” is “imminent”, with more restrictions on activities due to the outbreak of COVID that the entity has registered in October.
“The downward trend that we had achieved throughout the month of September changed in October, and in recent weeks an upward trend has been sustained ,” Alfaro said in a video.
“It seems that we lost our fear of the virus. The shopping malls are full, the restaurants with lines to enter, the bars full, houses became centers of meeting and partying, people walking around as if nothing was happening”, he added.
The indicators that the entity defined for the activation of the emergency button, he said, have reached a critical point. He referred that there is a cumulative incidence rate of 396.7 cases, with the limit for the button being 400.
On October 22, he detailed, a record of active cases was registered, with 4,343, and on October 23 a record of confirmed cases, with 900.
It is clear, he said, that the limits established for the emergency button will be passed next week because the trend has not been reversed.
On Tuesday there will be a new evaluation of the COVID situation in the entity and next Wednesday, he said, it will be confirmed whether or not the emergency button is applied from Friday, with a duration of 14 days. Closures could come as early as Friday, October 30.
If so, the measures will include the suspension of activities during the night, from Monday to Friday. “During the day, we would continue with normal activities but seriously complying with the established health protocols,” he said.
For two weekends, he pointed out, there would be a total suspension of activities in the entity, so that people would stay at home, except for Puerto Vallarta, where the night suspension would only apply for 14 days, although Puerto Vallarta is among the fastest-growing centers of COVID-19 infections. Just this week, Canada confirmed cases of COVID-19 entering the country by airplane from Puerto Vallarta.
Additional measures include public transport would stop operating at 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and two weekends, and gatherings of more than 10 people behind closed doors, as well as events of more than 50 people in open places, would be prohibited.
It would not be a curfew, Alfaro said, food services could continue to have home delivery at night and on weekends, pharmacies and grocery stores could remain open, people could go out at any time, although with the referred night suspension of public transport.
Alfaro accused the federal government of trying to hide the outbreak of COVID in the country.
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“The president, once again, has decided to ignore the alarms,” he said.
“The federal government has once again minimized the risk we have in front of us, with smoke screens they want to hide the beginning of a second wave of infections nationwide, that attitude has already cost the country thousands of lives.”
Although, the state government has done little to stop the spread of the virus and has continued to invest money into tourism and encouraging travelers from hard-hit countries to visit Puerto Vallarta and other destinations in Jalisco.