Covid: Mexicans block US tourists at the border
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This weekend, residents of a Mexican city near the U.S. border blocked US tourists from entering for fear of the coronavirus. Using their vehicles, they blocked the road to Puerto Peñasco, a complex popular with American tourists, reports The Guardian.
During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump said he wanted to build a "big and beautiful wall" along the border between the United States and Mexico. The man claimed that the wall would stop migrants and diseases from Mexico. With the resurgence of coronavirus cases in the two border countries, Mexicans want to limit cross-border movements. Locals fear that American tourists will bring the virus en masse to the country.
This weekend, residents of Sonoyta, a town on the border with Arizona, blocked the way to a resort using their own vehicles. As The Guardian mentions, residents have already planned to start again this weekend.
"We invite American tourists not to visit Mexico," Sonoyta Mayor José Ramos Arzate said in a statement. "We have agreed on this point to preserve the health of our community against an accelerated rate of Covid-19 infection in the neighboring state of Arizona."
Mexican President minimizes
Coronavirus cases have increased in the border states of Texas and Arizona. His decontamination did not go as planned. For his part, Trump blames Mexico by claiming that the city of Tijuana is "heavily infected with coronavirus." Donald Trump will host his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, at a meeting to celebrate the implementation of the new USMCA agreement. The two men will take the opportunity to discuss the pandemic, The Guardian said.
Like Donald Trump, López Obrador ignored advice about wearing a mask and downplayed the importance of the coronavirus as his country struggled to end the pandemic. Like the United States, Mexico has not implemented a large-scale screening program. Therefore, many experts believe that the official figures are largely underestimated.
Checkpoints
For their part, the various Mexican states near the US border are concerned. They say that many cross-border movements threaten their efforts to limit the spread of the virus and ask the Mexican government to impose restrictions on travelers from the United States.
"It is very important to implement the necessary measures to protect the health of the people of the state of Sonora. And one of them must be to reduce the border crossings between the United States and Mexico," said the secretary of health of Sonora, Enrique Clausen, at the beginning of this month.
During the weekend of July 4, the state of Sonora established checkpoints to assess people in the United States, pushing back tourists and others whose travel was not considered essential. An exception was made for the border post closest to Puerto Peñasco, which led residents to block the road near the border.
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