The Foreign Ministry of Mexico announced the extension the non-essential border crossing ban for 30 additional days, based on "reviewing the development of COVID-19 spread".
"At Mexico's suggestion, restrictions on non-essential land traffic on the common border with the United States were extended for additional 30 days after reviewing the spread of COVID-19," the ministry wrote on Twitter.
Tras revisar el desarrollo de la propagación de COVID-19, 🇲🇽 planteó a 🇺🇸 la extensión, por 30 días más, de las restricciones al tránsito terrestre no esencial en su frontera común.
— Relaciones Exteriores (@SRE_mx) July 14, 2020
The measure will be effective until 21 August, implying no changes to the restrictions on non-essential travel between the countries imposed earlier on 21 March to help slow the spread of the pandemic. Initially, the ban had been imposed until 21 July.
The ban does not apply to supplies of food, fuel, medicines and certain other necessary goods. Travel for educational, medical, emergency and government reasons is also permitted.
The United States is the world's most coronavirus-affected country, with over 3.3 million registered cases and more than 136,000 related deaths. Mexico has an estimated 300,000 COVID-19 cases, with a death toll of at least 35,000 people.
COVID-19 was proclaimed a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in March. The global number of registered cases has eclipsed 13.1 million with over 574,000 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
