López Obrador asks the population to "not trust" in the face of covid-19 outbreaks in eight states

Patients with covid symptoms wait outside a clinic in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, where authorities have raised the alert to a red light on Thursday.LUIS TORRES / EFE

The Ministry of Health of Mexico has reported that the health situation and the increase in coronavirus cases has reached a new peak in the country.

In eight states, the data indicate that outbreaks are occurring due to the increase in infections and the occupation of hospital beds.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has ruled out taking drastic measures in his morning press conference this Friday: “We are going to continue insisting that we must take care of ourselves, not trust ourselves, that people themselves take care measures, that we do not have to resort to disciplinary measures ”.

"I trust a lot in that, in informing people, telling them not to trust oneself, to continue with hygiene measures, everything that has been recommended," he added. López Obrador denied days ago the existence of outbreaks and maintains that the strategy that Mexico has followed so far “has worked.” The country has accumulated more than 870,000 cases of covid-19 and 87,894 deaths since the start of the pandemic, although the real figure could be higher.

Chihuahua, where there has been a faster transmission speed than in other territories in the last two weeks, is going to become the first state to return to a red light, as reported Thursday night by the Undersecretary of Health Hugo López- Gatell.

"Chihuahua does have a significant increase, a rapid rise," he indicated.

In this state in the north of the country, the peak of infections registered in the last week is four times higher than those of previous weeks.

Mortality data indicate that “people who are dying from severe acute respiratory infection” register an increase “in parallel with the increase in estimated cases”.

Furthermore, hospitalizations have increased accordingly: occupancy levels in ventilated beds are in the orange range and general beds are bordering on the red range of availability.

For this reason, Chihuahua will go to red traffic light starting this Friday at 22.00.

The new measures include Dry Law throughout the state for several weeks and mobility in Ciudad Juárez will be suspended.

The incidence of the virus in the states of Durango, Aguascalientes, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Nuevo León and Querétaro also has the characteristics of regrowth.

In Aguascalientes, in the center of the country, mortality is on the decline but the occupancy levels in hospital beds also stood at orange levels.

In Durango, the incidence of the virus has multiplied by 2.5 in the last week.

Regarding Guerrero, where the data threatens to continue increasing, López-Gatell has indicated that he supports the early precautionary measures that the local government has adopted.

“We call on the population of the state of Guerrero, in particular Acapulco, to consider prevention measures very judiciously, not to go out on public roads if this is not essential, to use the mask, particularly in public spaces closed, wash hands continuously and keep a healthy distance ”, he pointed out.

At the national level, Mexico has registered 6,612 new cases of covid-19 and 479 more deaths in the last 24 hours.