Nearly half of Miss Mexico 2021 contestants test positive for COVID-19

• Almost half of the contestants at this year's Miss Mexico pageant tested positive for the coronavirus.
• But organizers moved forward with the contest despite many of them showing symptoms, reports said.
• Beauty pageant-goers from 14 of Mexico's 32 states in last week's contest in the northern city of Chihuahua contracted COVID-19.

Nearly half of the contestants at this year's Miss Mexico pageant tested positive for the coronavirus - but organizers moved forward with the contest despite many of them showing symptoms, reports said.

"Even though many [of the contestants] were coughing, had body aches and even a temperature, they asked them not to complain," a source from the pageant told the local newspaper Reforma, The Guardian reported.

Beauty pageant-goers from 14 of Mexico's 32 states in last week's contest in the northern city of Chihuahua wound up contracting COVID-19, a local health official said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

All contestants in the pageant had submitted negative tests for the virus before the contest began, State Health Secretary Eduardo Fernández Herrera told local media, the Associated Press reported.

However, authorities were tipped off that one person was infected with the coronavirus, the news outlet said.

Almost half of the contestants in the Miss Mexico 2021 pageant ultimately tested positive for the virus, along with a staff member, reports said.

The pageant ended early on Saturday after the COVID-19 test results came back positive, according to the Associated Press.

Before the beauty pageant, contestants visited a school in northern Mexico's Copper Canyon, The Guardian reported.

According to the news outlet, a source told Reforma that "a minimum 10 [contestants] had symptoms" on that trip.