Updates Coronavirus March 26 U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Plus:  State Prosecutor in Juarez Threatens to Send Stay-At-Home Violators to Jail

Mexico:  (click here for source  475 confirmed cases as of March 26 )

USA:  68,594 cases confirmed as of early morning March 26. (click here for source)

Chihuahua:  (click here for source)  6 confirmed cases, 8 suspected cases, 28 negative cases.

Sonora:  (click here for source):  4 confirmed cases, 35 suspected cases, 51 negative cases

New Mexico:  (click here for source):  112 confirmed cases; total tests given:  7793

Texas:  (click here for source):1345 confirmed cases

Arizona:  (click here for source):  401 confirmed cases

El Paso:  (click here for source): 21 confirmed cases plus 7 confirmed cases at Ft. Bliss

Analysis:  The number of confirmed cases in each entity does not tell a complete picture of what is happening, since the number of tests given per capita varies from place to place.  Mexico, for example, has uncovered only 475 cases of coronavirus as of March 26.  But they have apparently tested only 4546 cases in total (475 confirmed, 1656 "suspected"--presumably awaiting test results--and 2445 negative cases from a very select group of people--returning from foreign countries, or having come directly in contact with someone who has tested positive out of this group.  New Mexico, on the other hand, has tested 7793 persons so far, and uncovered 112 cases.  Moreover, Mexico allows private testing, and I'm not sure whether the results of these must be sent to the government to be included in the statistics.

Similarly, it is not clear how extensive testing has been in Texas.

Prison for People Roaming the Streets of Juarez

Perhaps wishing to underscore the critical need for people to isolate, and the determination of the state government to enforce the stay-at-home quarantine currently in place, Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral has announced that persons violating the rules; that is to say, roaming the streets, will be subject to prosecution with penalties up to four years in prison. To punctuate this point the state prosecutor in Juarez announced his intentions of enforcing the governor's orders.  (click here for story in NorteDigital).  Chihuahua has imposed the strictest lockdown orders thus far given in the border region, and far more than in the US as a whole.

This may reflect the apparent paucity of testing going on in Mexico.  If you aren't testing extensively, to understand the magnitude and geographic extension of the contagion, the only remedy to "flatten the curve" is a strict quarantine.  In the US testing has been extremely slow to take hold, although not as slow as Mexico.  As in Mexico the federal government in the US has left the question of social distancing to the states.