Stricter coronavirus restrictions will be implemented in Jalisco for two weeks starting Friday due to an increase in new case numbers.

Governor Enrique Alfaro said Wednesday morning that his government had taken the decision to press the metaphorical “emergency button” due to a recent spike in infections, pointing out that 904 new cases were registered in Jalisco on Tuesday.

“We’ve taken the decision to activate this mechanism and it will begin its application this Friday,” he said.

The governor has indicated previously that virtually all economic activity would be required to come to a complete and immediate halt if the button was pressed but said Wednesday that the strategy to respond to a worsening coronavirus outbreak had been redesigned.

“The redesign … was completed with the central aim of affecting activities as little as possible,” Alfaro said.

As a result, nonessential economic, social, religious and sports activities will be permitted between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. but suspended outside those hours between October 30 and November 13. Nonessential activities will be suspended entirely on Saturdays and Sundays.

However, an exception has been made for the tourism-dependent resort city of Puerto Vallarta, where nonessential activities will be suspended between 8:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. every day during the two-week-long period.

Public transit and the operation of ride-share services such as Uber will be suspended across Jalisco between 9:00 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. on weekdays and the former will only be available for essential workers on weekends. Taxis will be permitted to operate outside the suspended hours and on weekends.

Beaches will remain open but access will be limited to between 5:00 a.m and 3:00 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday and 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m on Sundays and Mondays.

Among the services and businesses that will be permitted to maintain their regular hours are hospitals, medical clinics, pharmacies, convenience stores and gas stations.

Jalisco is currently an orange light “high” risk state on the federal government’s coronavirus stoplight map but Alfaro has chosen to ease and tighten restrictions according to state government criteria rather than federal advice. The governor accused coronavirus czar Hugo López-Gatell of playing politics after Jalisco regressed to red light status on the federal coronavirus map in July.

According to Jalisco authorities, as of Tuesday the state had recorded 89,988 confirmed coronavirus cases and 3,967 Covid-19 deaths.

But in its official statistics the federal government has only registered 33,339 cases for the state because it doesn’t count results from private clinics or rapid Covid-19 tests.

Similarly, the Nuevo León government has a much higher case tally than the federal government’s official numbers for the northern state.

It is also currently orange on the federal stoplight map but Nuevo León Health Minister Manuel de la O Cavazos said this week that it should be “intense red.”

Source: Reforma (sp), El Informador (sp), Milenio (sp)