The chief of police and eight other public servants in Tijuana, Baja California, have been diagnosed with Covid-19.

Mayor Arturo González Cruz appointed Roberto Esparza Trujillo as municipal police chief in February. The municipal government announced the diagnosis and said that he is “being safeguarded in his home [and receiving] medical care.”

Municipal spokesperson Miguel Larre said that the operations of the police force “will not be affected and we will continue serving the population in a timely manner.”

Tijuana ranks among the municipalities with the most cases of Covid-19 in the country with 557, and has reported the most deaths from the disease with 66, according to federal Health Ministry data.

Security forces aren’t the only frontline responders being hit hard by the coronavirus in Tijuana. Baja California Governor Jaime Bonilla said last week that doctors were “falling like flies” in the municipality due to a critical shortage of personal protective equipment.

Despite having taken measures such as closing the municipality’s beaches early on in the quarantine period, cases have continued to rise.

State authorities point the finger to the fact that there are no controls on people entering the country from California, prompting the Baja Congress to request earlier this week that the federal government install health screening checkpoints at the border crossings to detect possible cases coming in.

Source: Milenio (sp)

CORRECTION: The earlier version of this story reported that Tijuana had recorded 149 cases, but those were active cases. The total, in fact, was 557 as of Wednesday evening. Cases are deemed active when a person has symptoms and is contagious.