It has been 14 months since the restrictions on border crossings due to the coronavirus pandemic were put in place. What seemed to last a couple of months has been extended and has modified the daily life of citizens who used to cross the border for different activities, mostly related to recreation.

So far, we have not heard anything concrete as to when the reopening that we have all been waiting for will take place. The only thing that gives us some sort of direction was what Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said in recent months: there will be no reopening of the border for non-essential travel until the border states are green. If this is true, we have hit a wall, as the situation in Baja California has become a bit complicated.

Yesterday, Health authorities, headed by Baja California's Secretary of Health, Alonso Pérez Rico, announced that one of the state's municipalities would return to orange due to an increase in coronavirus cases. The municipality of Mexicali (the rest of the municipalities will continue in yellow) took a step back in the epidemiological traffic light and this brings more severe restrictions.

This could mean a delay in the lifting of border restrictions, since the more restrictive the color of the traffic light is, the further away we are from being able to transit the border. "We have to wait for the traffic light to move because that is what we agreed with the United States. We could not lift those measures when our own map says there have to be certain restrictions," Ebrard said months ago.

Unless these rules have changed and they begin to prioritize the border zone economy that has been affected by the lack of Mexican tourists, as the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce has pointed out on different occasions, the restrictions will remain in place for who knows how much longer.

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