BAJA IS CALLING
STATE AND U.S. AUTHORITIES URGE AGAINST NONESSENTIAL TRIPS, BUT LOS CABOS IS REOPENING
IS THIS THE TIME for a vacation in Baja? Absolutely not, says California’s governor. Absolutely, say travel industry leaders in Mexico and the U.S., desperate for income and eager to explain safety measures.
Check with the U.S. government, and you’ll find the U.S.-Mexico ban on cross-border vacations includes an exception (explained below) that’s large enough to fly a 747 through. Airlines are adding Baja flights, and scores of hotels in southern Baja California have opened in recent weeks, offering new safety measures and counting on thousands of Californians to head south.
With infections rising fast in the U.S. and Mexico and a chunk of the Baja economy at stake, here are some questions and answers.
What do U.S. agencies say?
> If you’re flying from LAX to Los Cabos, you’re defying the advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which warns “against nonessential international travel” because it “increases your chances of getting and spreading” COVID-19.
You’re also ignoring the U.S. State Department, which advises U.S. citizens to “avoid all international travel.”
But as long as you fly, you’re legal. When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Mexico agreed in March to forbid nonessential travel across their border, the ban included cars, commuter rail and ferry travel, but left out travel by “air, rail or sea.”
U.S. and Mexican officials have renewed that pact through Aug. 20.
But many consumers are unaware of, or perplexed by, the exemption for travel by air.
“That is a confusion in the mind-set of the potential travelers,” Los Cabos Tourist Board’s managing director, Rodrigo Esponda, said in midJuly.
Asked about this provision, the U.S. State Department referred emails to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not respond.
How much is reopening in southern Baja?
> Since early June, 72 of 85 major hotels have opened in Los Cabos. Esponda estimated the median room rate at $300 per night — about the same as before the pandemic.
Government officials urge all to wear cubrebocas — masks — in public. The Los Cabos Tourism Board said visitors should expect to have their temperature taken at the airport and at 22 local beaches with limits on crowding. Bars that don’t serve food are closed, Esponda said.
Sixteen of the area’s 18 golf courses and about 300 of its 2,000 restaurants are open. The hotels, allowed to book up to 30% of their rooms, have already reached 20% occupancy, Esponda said, and roughly two of every five guests are from California.
But tourism and infections are rising together. Mexican federal authorities count Baja California Sur among the nation’s most pandemic-troubled states. In municipalities outside Los Cabos, including La Paz, Comondú and Mulegé, authorities have closed beaches.
“It was completely logical, expected and planned that there would be a slight increase
in the number of cases in Los Cabos,” Esponda said.
“It’s a very tricky situation, and we’re at the confluence of health and the economy,” said Bryan Jáuregui, who co-owns Los Colibris Casitas in the town of Todos Santos.
How do coronavirus infection rates compare among California,
Baja California and Baja California Sur?
> California seems to be sickest.
In the state of Baja California (the more populous northern half of the peninsula that includes Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali), a New York Times tally showed a reported 13,056 cases and 2,574 deaths as of July 30, including 24 new cases per 100,000 people in the previous seven days.
In Baja California Sur (which includes Los Cabos, La Paz and Loreto), the same count showed 3,908 cases and 148 deaths, including 79 new cases per 100,000 people in the previous seven days.
In California, the July 30 count showed 491,833 cases and 8,965 deaths, including 165 new cases per 100,000 people in the previous seven days.
If Californians travel, the state’s Department of Public
Health’s public affairs office said, they should “avoid traveling long distances for vacations or pleasure as much as possible. This is to slow the spread of the coronavirus.”
Who is flying between LAX and Los Cabos?
> In spring, air traffic to southern Baja all but stopped. But by early July, Alaska, American and Delta airlines were flying daily between LAX and Los Cabos airport.
Alaska (which also flies to Los Cabos from San Jose and San Diego and from LAX to Loreto twice weekly) in August plans to add a San FranciscoLos Cabos flight and a second LAX-Los Cabos flight.
United on Monday started flying five times a week between Los Cabos and LAX, and also between Los Cabos and San Francisco.