COVID no barrier to fiesta time in Guerrero capital

The coronavirus has had no shortage of recent opportunities to spread in Chilpancingo, Guerrero.

The annual San Mateo Fair started in mid-December, meaning that there have been a plethora of public events in the state capital.

After more than two weeks of concerts, dance processions and other events, Chilpancingo played host to a rodeo at the Belisario Arteaga bullring on Tuesday.

Some 13,000 people filled the arena, where mask wearing was lackadaisical and social distancing impossible. The band El Recodo added to the festive, carefree mood, playing for almost four hours while bull riders tried to stay on their bucking animals.

The San Mateo Fair, which concludes this weekend, was given the green light to go ahead on the proviso that virus mitigation measures would be enforced and attendees would show their COVID-19 vaccination certificates or otherwise agree to a rapid test prior to entry to the various events.

But attendees at the Tuesday night rodeo didn’t have to comply with any of those requirements, the newspaper El Universal reported.

Despite the partying in Chilpancingo, and the recent increase in national coronavirus case numbers, COVID has not (yet) become a major problem in Guerrero, at least according to official data. The state, which also includes tourism hotspots Acapulco and Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa, currently has 440 active cases, the Guerrero Health Ministry reported Wednesday.

Only 63 of those are in Chilpancingo, while 192 – 44% of the total – are in Acapulco. According to federal data, Guerrero has the sixth least number of cases on a per capita basis among the 32 states. Only Chiapas, Veracruz, Michoacán, Tlaxcala and Oaxaca have fewer cases per 100,000 people.

With reports from El Universal