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Hermosillo Mayor Wants Her City To Have Its Own COVID-19 Rating System

Sonora Pandemic
Murphy Woodhouse/KJZZ
A woman crosses the street in downtown Hermosillo, where many shops closed during the pandemic have reopened in recent months.

Coronavirus risk is on the rise in the Mexican state of Sonora, according to a federal measure. But the capital’s mayor wants the city to have its own rating system.

This week, Sonora went from yellow to orange on the federal coronavirus semáforo— or traffic light. But Hermosillo’s Mayor Célida López insisted that the state capital was still at yellow. And now the city health committee is petitioning federal health officials for the ability to create their own semaforo.

“Beyond the state traffic light, we want everyone to know the Hermosillo traffic light,” she said.

Earlier in the week, federal prevention and health promotion subsecretary Hugo López-Gatell urged dialogue between state and local authorities when asked about Hermosillo’s insistence about being at yellow. He also said states, not municipalities, are health authorities, and that trying to apply the semáforo to small areas risks compromising its validity.

Murphy Woodhouse was a senior field correspondent at KJZZ from 2018 to 2023.