What's Happening in Mexico Right Now?
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Hi Mexico-loving friends,
I hope this email finds you well.
The Mexican government have announced that there will be no changes to the Covid-19 traffic light system for the next two weeks, which means several popular tourist destinations like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Merida, and Los Cabos remain in the orange.
The deputy health minister has acknowledged that Mexico is headed into a third wave.
Traffic Light Changes
For those that are new around here, last year Mexico's federal government created a traffic light system to help businesses and people understand the risks of Covid-19 in each state around Mexico. It was then up to the state governments to decide how to interpret these traffic light colors.
Red means the highest risk of covid and that hospitals are near capacity. It has been interpreted in most states at total lockdown. This past Monday began the 18th straight week with no states in the red here in Mexico.
Orange is a level below red status and means that there is still a high risk of covid-19 and many restrictions are still in place, but for the most part, hotels, restaurants, and shops are allowed to be open with about 30% capacity (again this depends on the state's interpretation). These are the states that will remain in orange with a risk of possibly moving into the red because of continued increases in severe cases and hospitals becoming overrun: Baja California Sur, Tabasco, Quintana Roo, Yucatán, and Tamaulipas.
Quintana Roo, Yucatán, and Baja California Sur are seeing some of the biggest peaks in case numbers since the beginning of the pandemic.
Yellow means lower risk level and most places are allowed to have up to 50% capacity. States in yellow are allowed to have fans at sporting events and bars are allowed to be open (in some states clubs are also open in Yellow). Museums and other tourist attractions can be back open with restrictions. All of the states currently in yellow include Campeche, Chihuahua, Mexico City, Colima, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Veracruz.
For over a month running now, more than half of the country's states are in the green, a huge step for getting kids back to school this coming September. Green means that there is a very low risk of Covid, that many places can have more than 75% capacity and almost all services can resume. Precautions like masks and temperature checks are still taken, especially indoors. There is only one more state added to the list this week and that is Baja California. The states that are currently green in Mexico include Aguascalientes, Baja California, Chiapas, Coahuila, Durango, México state, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Tlaxcala, and Zacatecas
You can read more about these changes in this article.
Updates From the Road
My Baja California Sur guidebook is finally out! If you didn't receive my email last week or you missed the updates on social media, the book came out on July 1st and is available as a pdf download here or a paperback copy on Amazon here.
If you've already purchased the guidebook THANK YOU. I have more than tripled my goals for the first weekend of sales for this book and I am beyond grateful to all of you for your support, comments, emails, kind words, and feedback over the course of researching and writing this guidebook. If you enjoy what you've read so far, it would mean the world to me if you took a few moments to write an Amazon review here.
I have also finished up all of the videos from our Baja California Sur road trip and shared the stunning condo that we stayed in during our last week in San Jose del Cabo.
- The Most Underrated Town in Baja California Sur
- A French Town in Mexico?!
- Why I LOVE La Paz, Mexico
- San Jose del Cabo Condo Tour
Like I mentioned in the last update two weeks ago, I will be changing up these bi-monthly newsletters starting this month. Since there aren't as many changes happening week-to-week in Mexico anymore, I think a monthly update will be more than enough to keep you posted on what's happening around Mexico. So you won't hear from me again until the first week of August!
I will also be creating a new monthly newsletter where I will be sharing more personal stories of our travels and expat adventures. We have just started a very new and exciting adventure that I'll be sharing via those newsletters this coming weekend! For those that are interested in joining that newsletter, please simply click here and you will be added to that list! (you don't need to fill out the form unless you want to be EXTRA sure you're on the list or you would prefer to use a different email address to the current one you are using).
Keep up with what's happening in other parts of Mexico
Although the traffic light system isn't changing very much lately, the interpretation of these guidelines and what's actually happening on the ground in each state is still changing a lot week-to-week.
It's impossible for me to know exactly how each state and indeed each municipality within these states is interpreting the traffic light system. So I highly recommend seeking out people who are currently located within the town or city in Mexico that you want to visit. Here are some of the people that I recommend following:
For updates about Mexico City, as always I recommend following Ubish Yaren on Instagram. You can also follow Anais of The Curious Mexican for updates on the restaurant and food scene in Mexico City and what is back open.
For updates about what's going on in Oaxaca, Susan of Brooklyn Tropicali has been sharing her updates of what's going on around the city and state of Oaxaca as more things open up there.
For regular updates about life in Merida and around the Yucatan, check out Mexico Cassie who has also recently written a fantastic guide about Traveling Yucatan with Kids. The Yucatan Times is the local English newspaper in Merida that shares local updates and news reports.
To keep up with what's going on in and around Querétaro, follow Alex of the Backpacking Brunette.
Trisha of P.S. I'm on My Way regularly shares updates about life in Nayarit where she balances time between Nueva Vallarta where she lives and Sayulita where she works. Vallarta Daily is the local English news there where you can learn about any changes in the situation.
Claire's Itchy Feet is a great page to follow for updates about life in both Nayarit and Playa del Carmen where she splits her time. Riviera Maya News is the local English newspaper there where you can keep up with changes.
For updates about Acapulco, follow Raphael of Journey of Wonders.
As always, a great place to keep up to date with news about what's happening all over Mexico in English is Mexico News Daily.
Visiting Mexico Soon?
If you are planning a trip to Mexico soon, I hope you'll have a browse of the different locations on my blog or have a search through my YouTube videos to help you plan your trip!
I also have FOUR extensive guidebooks available for Baja California Sur, Mexico City (updated this year with tons of new content!), Merida, and Guanajuato!
As always, you can find me most often on Instagram with daily updates and photos, but I also post very regularly on Facebook if you prefer following along there.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to email me by simply hitting reply on this email.
See you next month!
Laura
