Puerto Vallarta has the highest level of threat from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, above what was registered in the summer of 2020, and also during the peak of the Christmas season, explained researchers from the University of Guadalajara (UdeG).
The academics of the Institute for Research and Studies of the cities that belong to the University Center of Art, Architecture and Design (CUAAD), developed a predictive model of Covid-19 that measures the threat from 0 to 10: with 10 being the highest risk. While the average threat level in the State is 5, in Puerto Vallarta it is 8, the academics warned.
This indicator is based on two factors: one is the number of active cases per 100,000 inhabitants and the reproduction factor R, which is the figure that indicates how many more people are infected for each active case; the Delta variant could be influencing this rally.
The increase in this indicator for Puerto Vallarta is above what the predictive model estimated, warned researcher Marco de Paolini, in charge of the technological development of the mathematical modeling of the data.
“The fact that these confirmed cases have been triggered compared to those that were foreseen, tells you that something very anomalous is happening. Why? Before, until the predictions were triggered, they were very well aligned with the cases that were actually observed and now they have shot above the predictions. That means that the model is not responding to reality because something new is happening and it is very possibly due to that variant ”.
The secretary of InCiudades, and person in charge of the project, Adriana Inés Olivares González, explained what could have influenced this increase.
“One of our hypotheses is that after the time we were at home, all the inhabitants of the State and the country, people were desperate to leave and began to go to do tourist activity to nearby areas, and this may have been the factor that is triggering the increase added, precisely to the opening of all economic activities, which also occurred, although with protocols and restrictions, it seems that the protocols are not being respected ”.
The data shows that the risk has increased greatly and it may be that the Jalisco Plan, which was announced in February to direct a controlled opening of economic activities, is not giving results, the researcher concluded.
