TIJUANA (Border Report) — Tijuana’s infamous beer drought continues with no end in sight, but it hasn’t stopped people from searching for a six-pack of suds anywhere they can.

When word gets out a store in Tijuana has beer, lines form almost instantly. This is what health officials are trying to avoid, people in close proximity out on the streets in violation of social distancing guidelines. (Courtesy: Oscar Gerardo)

In an effort to keep people off the streets to prevent the spread of COVID-19, city officials are pleading with residents to refrain from wandering the streets in search of the elusive “cold one.”

“If we don’t stop this practice and stay off the streets altogether, this is going to become worrisome if people continue to disregard sanitary measures in place to prevent the spread of the pandemic,” said Jose Maria Ramos, an investigator with Colegio de la Frontera, a research institute in Baja California.

Tijuana practically out of beer

Tijuana has been out of Mexican beer for weeks due to breweries shutting down when they were declared non-essential by the Mexican government.

View of empty fridges and freezers in a store due to the shortage of beer, after the breweries countrywide closed their production due to the COVID-19 coronavirus in Monterrey, state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, on May 5, 2020. (Photo by Julio Cesar AGUILAR / AFP) (Photo by JULIO CESAR AGUILAR/AFP via Getty Images)

That means popular brands such as Corona, Dos Equis and Modelo have dried up in stores and markets.

Mexico stops making Corona beer after brewer deemed non-essential in pandemic

Health officials are asking people to forget about their brews and concentrate on protecting themselves and their families.

“We cannot relax measures such as social distancing, we need to do the opposite,” said Baja California’s Secretary of Health Alonso Perez.

“We need to reinforce a bit more that in order to curve this epidemic, we need to eliminate ways to infect one another.”

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