SAN DIEGO – San Diego County plans to establish its first coronavirus control at one of the world’s most active foreign pedestrian border crossings, authorities said Wednesday.
County supervisor Greg Cox said that the county will begin tests in about two weeks at the San Ysidro port of entry’s PedWest crossing, which is exclusively pedestrian and connects Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego. An estimated 20,000 pedestrians enter the United States at the crossing daily, though that number has dropped with the pandemic and the shuttering of businesses.
Essential staff arriving in the U.S. From Mexico and returning U.S. citizens will report the evidence on the site without an appointment, Cox said. County officials expect to do about two hundred tests a day.
To restrict the spread of coronavirus, the United States has agreements with Canada and Mexico to restrict all that is not essential across borders.
The border testing site will join more than two dozen others across San Diego County. The nearest testing site to the border crossing now is about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away.