By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Despite an official lockdown order from Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum to help curb the spread of the raging covid-19 pandemic, Mexico City residents took to the streets and celebrated the Christmas and New Year holidays in force last month, violating citywide mandates on large gatherings.

According to the Mexico City Citizen Command, Control, Computer, Communications and Contact Center (C5), between Dec. 24 and Dec. 31, there were a total of 593 arrests for overcrowded and overzealous parties in the capital, a figure that was 2,272 percent higher than the comparable number for the same period a year ago.

Just over the Dec. 31 to Jan. 1 New Year holiday alone, the C5 said, there were 225 parties broken up by Mexico City authorities due to excessive gathering size in blatant violation of city hygiene protocol ordinances.

In most cases, only a handful of guests were wearing masks when arrested, thus adding to the dangers of mass contagion.

On Dec. 18, Sheinbaum implemented strict citywide regulations forbidding gatherings outside immediate family members due to a sharp increase in covid-19 cases.

Those restrictions are suppose to remain in place through Jan. 10.

As of Jan 2, Mexico had more than 1.437 million confirmed cases of the disease and nearly 127,000 deaths (although those figures are considered to be unrealistically low by most experts since there is a dire lack of testing), and about 25 percent of those cases are in Mexico City, making the capital the country’s Ground Zero for coronavirus infections.

On Dec. 16, Mexico City Public Health Secretary Oliva López Arellano warned that 60 percent of all infections in the city were the result of large gatherings or parties.

Health specialists are anticipating a major surge in covid cases within a week or two of the New Year celebrations.

…Jan. 4, 2020