Riviera Maya, Q.R. — Governor Carlos Joaquín says it’s time to learn to leave with the coronavirus. He says the time has come to make use of the mouth mask and other health habits a part of daily life.
“The great goal is to learn to live with the virus. And we can do it with health habits, measures and protocols. In this way, we will avoid regressing, again, to the confinement stage with the closure of activities,” he said.
During the live interview, Joaquín said that today, the new coronavirus variant is highly contagious, citing, as an example, the 900 daily cases in Quintana Roo, “which is a wake-up call, an alert, to take care of ourselves,” he stressed.
He said that the state will continue to receive tourists, but under the current color of the epidemiological light, which at the moment is yellow, which means a restriction in maximum capacity rates for many businesses.
During the last holiday period, Joaquin reported more than 1.4 million visitors that allowed the economic recovery of local jobs. Now, however, the state, along with the rest of the world, is battling another surge in the virus.
“We do not want to have an increased number of hospitalizations. We need to avoid the collapse of our health services. Today, we have a 12 percent hospital occupancy rate in covid areas, when last week, we only had 7 percent.
“This tells us that there are more infections and indicates that we have to take better care of ourselves,” he explained.
During the interview, the State Secretary of Health, Alejandra Aguirre Crespo, called on the public to go for covid-19 rapid testing only if they have symptoms. Her comment was made at a time when mobile rapid testing modules are filling their daily quota before even opening for testing.
She explained that during the winter season, respiratory diseases affect people more, but it is not necessarily due to coronavirus.