Mexico’s president tests positive for Covid-19
Mexico City, Jan 24 (efe-epa).- Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with Covid-19.
“I regret to inform you that I am infected with Covid-19. The symptoms are mild but I am already under medical treatment. As always, I am optimistic. We will all move forward,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.
López Obrador, 67, said that over the next few days, Interior Secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero will represent him at the daily morning news conferences he gives at the presidential palace.
Despite having tested positive for the disease, the president assured that he will remain updated on public affairs from the National Palace – the seat of the federal executive – and that he will go ahead with a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday as planned, to speak about obtaining doses of the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine.
“Tomorrow I will speak on the phone with President Vladimir Putin, because, apart from friendly relations, there is a possibility that they will send us the Sputnik V vaccine,” he explained.
On Sunday, López Obrador attended the inauguration of a National Guard facility in the state of San Luis Potosi along with the state’s governor, Juan Manuel Carreras, Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez, Secretary of the Navy, Rafael Ojeda, and Secretary of National Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval.
On Saturday, he visited the state of Nuevo Leon, where he also met with the governor, Jaime Rodríguez.
The president did not wear a mask at any of the events. He has refused to wear a mask in public since the start of the pandemic and resumed tours of the country some months ago.
During the week, he also had meetings with several members of his cabinet, including Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, with whom he was on Friday during a call with the United States President Joe Biden.
“My best wishes for the quick recovery of our President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He will come out ahead,” Ebrard said on Twitter.
Ebard was among many ministers who expressed support for the president after the news broke out.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, who has already had Covid-19, said that López Obrador will come out “well” due to his “strength, conviction and love of life.”
“I sincerely wish the president a speedy recovery,” said former president Felipe Calderón, a political rival of López Obrador.
Mexico has recorded 1.7 million Covid-19 cases and almost 150,000 deaths after a week with three records of daily infections and deaths.
The country has the fourth highest number of coronavirus deaths behind the United States, Brazil and India, according to John Hopkins University. EFE-EPA
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