Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador affirmed this Monday that the country “has not had problems” due to the new omicron variant of the coronavirus, which has been detected in more than 40 people in the territory.
“Infections have not increased and, most importantly, deaths have not increased. That does not mean that a special situation cannot occur, but I knock on wood. So far we have not had a problem,” said the president in his morning conference.
Mexico accumulates more than 3.9 million cases and almost 300,000 deaths from covid-19, the fourth-highest figure in the world, but unlike other countries, it spent Christmas without restrictions despite the presence of the omicron variant.
“In the case of Latin America there are not many infections, there is more presence of the new variant in Europe and the United States, but here little, however, there are,” argued López Obrador.
The country registered three consecutive days last week with more than 3,000 new cases, the highest figures for December.
But the president showed a graph that asserts that the country begins the week with a weekly reduction of 8% in the number of estimated cases, in addition to having only about 20,000 active cases, that is, people with symptoms in the last two weeks.
“In a very general way, there is no increase and the occupancy in general beds is very low, fortunately, 13%, and in intensive care beds with a ventilator, 11%”, he reported.
The president recalled that a year ago the outlook was more adverse, with a hospital occupancy that only in Mexico City reached 95%.
But now he is pleased to see the streets of the center of the Mexican capital and the Christmas festival that was installed in front of the National Palace, which has received criticism for attracting tens of thousands of people a day.
Still, López Obrador asked people to “not trust themselves.”
“In any case, we must take care of ourselves, anything that we notice strange, that may affect, we report it, we have never hidden anything, never, ” he said.
The president also reported that he is “in communication” with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, to discuss a possible plan to apply the booster vaccine against coronavirus on the northern border.