Mexico-Emergency Tracking, Southern Border Monitoring #3 (August, 2020)

On 11 March 2020, due to the alarming levels of propaga-tion and severity of the COVID-19 virus, the World Health Organization declared a State of Pandemic. Due to this situation, on 23 March 2020 the General Health Council of the Ministry of Interior of the United Mexican States acknowledged the epidemic as a serious disease deserving priority attention throughout the country.

The moderate alert traffic light, represented by the colour Orange, predominated during the first half of August in most of Mexico, with the gradual opening of non-essential activities. The State of Tabasco moved into this category on 31 August, despite accumulating 28,715 cases and 2,594 deaths and remaining one of the States with the highest hospital occupancy rate. The Municipality of Centro, where the city of Villahermosa is located, is where most of the State's cases have occurred, with 13,575 accumulated cases and 1,091 deaths, while Tenosique reported 974 cases and 64 deaths.

The state of Chiapas remained in Orange status for most of August, moving to Yellow at the end of the month, leading to a greater reopening of economic activities. Chiapas accumulated 6,289 cases and 1,076 deaths as of 31 August, of which 944 cases and 234 deaths were in the Municipality of Tapachula.

The Mexican government presented a report on the records of positive cases and deaths among the migrant population through August. There have been 407 positive cases of migrants at the national level, mainly from Honduras, the United States, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Cuba, El Salvador, and Guatemala. There were 23 reported deaths of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Canada, Chile, Cuba, Spain, and the United States. The States with the highest number of positive cases among migrants are the Federal District (Mexico City), Nuevo León, and Chihuahua. In the streets of downtonw Tapachula, a 25-year-old Haitian migrant who had shown symptoms of COVID-19 was reported to have been abandoned.