Mexico has recorded over 5.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases but none has been reported in 30 of Mexico’s almost 2,500 municipalities.

The national social development agency Coneval found that 98.8% of the country’s 2,469 municipalities had recorded at least one COVID case by May 14. That leaves 30 COVID-free municipalities, which Coneval didn’t identify.

However, a number of them – concentrated in the south – are visible on an interactive federal government COVID map.

Among those identified by Mexico News Daily are San Miguel Piedras, Santa Ana Tavela, San Juan Yatzona, San Bartolomé Yucuañe, San Juan Diuxi and Santa Cruz de Bravo, all of which are in Oaxaca.

Coneval said in a report that the COVID-free municipalities “are located in mountainous regions with low population density” and few paved roads.

Some municipalities attempted to keep the virus out by prohibiting or limiting the entry of outsiders.

Coneval also said that 230 municipalities haven’t recorded a single COVID-19 death. Over 70% of those – 167 – are in Oaxaca while 30 are in Chiapas and nine in Puebla.

That means that 9.3% of the nation’s municipalities haven’t recorded a COVID fatality. Almost 325,000 have been officially recorded in the rest of the country, although that figure is widely accepted to be a significant undercount.

Coneval said the territorial distribution of COVID has been heterogenous due to factors such as the concentration of the population in urban centers, the connectivity of the highway network, people’s mobility and socioeconomic characteristics.

“The dispersion of the disease has followed a pattern from urban areas to peripheral areas [before] finally spreading to rural localities,” the social development agency said.

Mexico City has maintained the unenviable title of Mexico’s coronavirus epicenter throughout the pandemic, with about 1.4 million of the country’s 5.76 million confirmed cases, or 24% of the total, detected there. México state, which includes many municipalities that are part of the greater Mexico City metropolitan area, ranks second for total cases with more than 570,000.

With reports from El Sol de México