Friday in Paso del Norte:  What's Happening

Coronavirus:  In El Paso on Tuesday city officials said there were no "active cases" of coronaviruses in the region, including Juárez, and informed the citizenry that the city is in possession of 400 test kits for coronavirus.  They did not reveal how many tests have been performed so far, and there is no way anyone can know if there are people infected with the virus in El Paso.  What we know is that of those who were tested, none were positive.  The good news is that there is a lab in El Paso that can test for the virus, suggesting that testing is underway.

In Mexico City yesterday the Deputy Secretary of Health, as if in answer to President Trump's ban on air traffic with Europe, declared Mexico would not restrict air traffic.

There are thousands of asylum seekers camping in Juárez near the international bridges, including Chamizal Park, and 80 US troops have been deployed to guard the bridges against any attempt to storm across them.  It would not be a pretty scene if these camps were to suffer an outbreak of Covid-19.  The US Supreme Court recently reversed a lower court's ruling that the Trump policy of "stay in Mexico" was illegal.  The presence of troops on the Free Bridge sparked rumors that the US government might shut down traffic on the international bridges.

The vocational school in Juárez, (the Technologico) will continue all classes, but only in an online format.  UACJ will continue classes, but will cancel events with large groups of people.

Homicides in Juárez  continue unabated, and are on track now to outpace last year's death toll.  As of today there have been about 80 homicides so far in March.  Two young women were executed in Col Chaveña in the vicinity of the cemetery there on Wednesday.  They were taken from a red Volkswagon and shot in the head.  Another woman's body was found last night in a park in the Southeast area of the city.  An encobijado was found in Sendero de San Isidro, and the charred body of a man was found in a house in El Campanario.  A man in Alta Vista was executed with gunshots to the head, and a woman was wounded by gunfire as she left a restaurant at Ejercito and Technologico.

In spite of the march against violence against women on Monday, seven women have been murdered so far this month in Juárez.