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State secretary of health says return to orange is from increase in positive cases not deaths or hospital rates

Riviera Maya, Q.R. — The State Secretariat of Health has clarified that the return to an orange epidemiological light is due to the confirmed increase in positive covid-19 cases and not hospitalizations and deaths.

Head of the state health agency, Alejandra Aguirre Crespo, said those indicators do not show an increase. However, despite the decrease in fatality and hospital occupation rates, the return to the orange light is a reminder about health protocols.

During a press conference, Crespo recounted the progress that Quintana Roo made in dealing with the health emergency situation and, subsequently, to the gradual, orderly and responsible reactivation of economic activities.

She said that during 2020, the state was without vaccines, without treatments and on maximum alert for hospital saturation. Then, the only way to protect ourselves was confinement or the limitation of economic and social activities, which were exchanged for strong effects on income, wages and employment.

“We are currently better prepared,” she said, “with more than 90 percent of the population having completed their primary vaccination schedule, we are making progress in the application of the second doses.”

Crespo says the conditions are different with almost 2.5 million doses applied whose protective effects began to be reflected in a decrease in the number of deaths and in hospital rates.

The new sanitary conditions that will be implemented next week, are derived from Governor Carlos Joaquín’s permanent call for the use of hygiene habits, the strict application of preventive measures, as well as protocols in businesses and establishments, which include a modification in capacities, which can be found online.

Crespo said that main tourist activities will have a capacity of 70 percent. She added that the epidemiological light system was designed to regulate economic reactivation and was introduced in the state in June 2020, a system that is still in use.

On Thursday, state governor Carlos Joaquin announced that the entire state will regress to an orange epidemiological light for January 24 to 30, after weeks of increased positive covid-19 cases.