San Luis R.C. gets initial allotment of COVID-19 vaccine
SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Son. – The mayor here says his city is “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,” now that vaccinations are being given locally for COVID-19.
The city received an initial allotment of 785 vaccines in mid-January, with health care workers and seniors being the first to receive shots.
“This is no small thing. This is something that is outstanding and very important,” San Luis Rio Colorado Mayor Santos Gonzalez said in a recent social media message.
“Now we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”
His message of hope came amid controversy prompted by the Sonora Health Ministry’s recent decision to classify the city as being at maximum epidemiological risk from the coronavirus. San Luis Rio Colorado is one of five Sonora cities so designated, owing to rising infection and mortality rates.
As of Jan. 17, the city across from Yuma County had recorded 383 deaths
related to COVID-19 and a mortality rate of more than 14% among those infected with the virus, according to health officials.
The health ministry attributed 4,494 deaths to the coronavirus as of mid-January.
Apart from San Luis Rio Colorado, the cities of Nogales, Hermosillo, Empalme and Guaymas have been placed in the red, the highest ranking on the government’s color-code scale of levels of epidemiological risk.
Gonzalez said his city’s health condition continues to consider San Luis Rio Colorado as being at heightened rather than maximum epidemiological risk.
The distinction is key, since cities classified as maximum risk can be ordered by the state to close non-essential businesses.
As of this week, the state had issued no such order to San Luis Rio Colorado.
In any event, he said, the city has renewed a public education campaign that has included visits to businesses to make sure all are complying with guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus.
Enrique Clausen, Sonora’s health minister, said the primary spreaders of the virus statewide continue to be young people who ignore social distancing recommendations.
“You already know what you have to do to save the lives of others,” he said in a social media message. “Not doing so borders on negligence and even a lack of humanity.”
In neighboring Baja California, 6,289 COVID-19 deaths had been recorded statewide as of mid-January. Among all cities, Mexicali recorded the highest number of deaths, 2,457.