Yucatán back to tougher restrictions as COVID continues to skyrocket
Yucatán recorded 459 new coronavirus cases in a single day as health authorities walked the state back from the green to yellow alert.
This means large-scale events like Mérida Fest and a planned music concerts at Foro and La Isla are assumed postponed until at least Feb. 15. Facemasks are mandatory, not just a guideline, although specifics were not given.
Previous lockdown measures — curfews, limits on restaurants or hotels and bans on alcohol sales — were not addressed.
Daily COVID cases were as low as 12 on Dec. 23, but have raged since the new, highly transmissible Omicron virus reached the Peninsula.
Public hospital admissions rose by 14 to reach 78 — around 50% occupancy — while quarantines rose 120% in a week, totaling 3,328 as of Thursday. Intensive care units were at 21%, up from 18.4% two weeks ago.
But it was the positivity rate — up to 58.4% compared to 14.7% on Dec. 30 — that sent Yucatán in reverse. As well, hospital admissions rose 40% and the rate of contagion rose from 1.2% to 1.87%.
Deaths were also up. Three men with hypertension, between 50 to 98, perished. Two were from Mérida and one was from Valladolid.
It’s a painful walk backward. Yucatán had progressed slowly to the “green” light in November for the first time since the pandemic arrived.
