Two weeks after hospitals near the California-Baja California border warned that more and more patients were receiving coronavirus, Attributing it to the health crisis in Mexico, the US government raised the alarm.
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Citing sources familiar with the matter, the Reuters news agency reported that US officials have met to express concern over the possibility that more dual-nationals seek medical attention on this side of the border if health services collapse in Mexico, once the economy improves or when vaccines finally become available in this country.
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Mexico is home to around 1.5 million US citizens. In Baja California alone, one of the most affected by the pandemic, about 265,000 live with a US passport.
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While there is still no word on an extreme plan to ban ill Americans from entering, some experts, such as León Rodríguez, who was director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) during the Obama administration, said in interviews with Reuters. that such a measure would pose “serious constitutional problems” and they asked that the border not be closed completely.
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For the time being, the Trump administration maintains the cancellation of “non-essential” crossings, both by vehicle and on foot, from Mexico and Canada. Its objective is to reduce infections and the arrival of sick foreigners. But the US is the country with the most infections and deaths from the disease.
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At the border, a binational population that crosses back & forth should feel backed up by both their countries’ healthcare services, regardless of place of birth. Thanks @fjdnl & @Reuters for reaching out to us about t / impact of # COVID19 on dual citizens. https://t.co/ZBgTwYZHom
– Carlos González Gtez (@carlos_glezgtez) May 12, 2020
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“On the border, a binational population that crosses from one side to the other should feel supported by the health services of both countries, regardless of the place of birth,” the Mexican consul in San Diego, Carlos González Gutiérrez, said in a tweet. on the hypothetical return of sick Americans.
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“We are at the highest point”
Mexico, which is in phase 3 of the contingency, is currently going through its peak of infections. This Tuesday, more than 36,000 infections and 3,573 deaths from covid-19 were reported. One of the red lights is the border city of Tijuana, which already totals 292 deaths, beating the figure of San Diego, in California, where 175 people have lost their lives to the virus.
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In Baja California there were 2,524 infections this Tuesday, being the third state in Mexico with the most cases and the second by number of deaths, 433. On average, it registers 6.7 deaths every day.
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“We are at the highest point. We saw it coming, that is why we do not have to relax,” Alonso Pérez Rico, Baja California’s secretary of Health, said in a virtual conference on Tuesday. “The issue right now is that we have beds and fans, what we are looking for are doctors and nurses, specifically to treat more patients,” he said of public hospitals.
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San Diego county authorities warned that the first two weeks of May “will have the highest peak of viral transmissions and deaths” in Tijuana, while expecting an overcrowding in their hospitals and an impact on California clinics, the newspaper reported. San Diego Union-Tribune.
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“The Baja California hospital system faces significant challenges and this could influence an increase in people crossing the border in need of medical care,” states a report that the San Diego Office of Public Health gave three mayors of cities near the border, according to the same medium.
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But officials said that if a wave of patients comes, they could deal with the problem. “Today, we have the capacity in our hospital system to support an increase in patients.”
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More cases in border hospitals
It was two hospitals in Chula Vista, in southern San Diego County, that began to pressure the Trump government to take “urgent actions” along the border strip, such as medical check-ups in that area and mandatory quarantine for who have symptoms.
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“Inadequate medical resources in the state of Baja California, including the tests necessary to respond to covid-19, pose a real threat to San Diego’s ability to handle the response to the coronavirus and the convenient reopening of the economy,” notes one Letter that executives from Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare hospitals sent to the federal government in late April.
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Both institutions serve more than 60% of the patients in that area. Their medical centers in Chula Vista, the letter warned, “have seen daily increases in covid-19 patients at significantly higher rates than in facilities in other regions of San Diego County.”
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A third of new coronavirus infections treated at Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista had crossed the border a week earlier, according to a spokesperson for the institution. While Sharp HealthCare said that at one time about 50% of their patients with the disease were at their Chula Vista medical center.
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