A dozen secretaries, governors and commercial flights: the trace of López Obrador's contacts

The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has tested positive for coronavirus this Sunday, has had a tight schedule until this weekend.

He has met with a dozen secretaries, undersecretaries, governors, candidates for the legislative, state and municipal elections in June and has flown in a commercial plane with a hundred passengers to Monterrey (capital of Nuevo León, northwest of the country) .

The test that uncovered the president's contagion has shaken the plans of all those who, like him, attended the events without a mask and some ignored the minimum measures of social distance.

The coronavirus has reached the presidency and his skeptical words about stricter quarantine measures and the closure of shops resonate these days in a country that breaks a record of infections and has endured more than 150,000 deaths from covid-19 to date.

On Friday, López Obrador was chairing a closed-door meeting at the home of his former head of office, Alfonso Romo, in Monterrey.

At a round table with Romo, the Secretary of Foreign Relations, Marcelo Ebrard, and the official translator of the Presidency, Lilia Rubio, without wearing masks and with a minimum distance between them, the leaders smiled for the photo after a call with the new president of the United States, Joe Biden.

The tour of Nuevo León did not stop.

The president attended a public ceremony to inaugurate the facilities of the National Guard in Sabinas Hidalgo, accompanied by the Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, who these days has been appointed as his representative to lead morning conferences to which the president does not attend.

Sánchez Cordero has responded this Monday on this point and has alleged that a rapid test has been carried out and has tested negative.

While waiting for the results of a PCR to confirm that it is not infected, it will be responsible for reporting on the Government's progress every morning in the hall of the National Palace in front of dozens of journalists.

On Friday night, the president held a dinner with businessmen from Nuevo León, which was also attended by the Secretary of Economy, Tatiana Clouthier.

The governor of Nuevo León, Jaime Rodríguez, alias

, also attended the acts of the president in his state.

He was one of the few assistants who at least in the photos appeared with face masks.

This Sunday he announced through his Twitter account: "After having attended events with the president this weekend, I will be on the lookout for my symptoms, to take the test if any appear."

Experts recommend, however, that you do a test regardless of symptoms if you have had direct contact with a person who tested positive.

Between Saturday and Sunday, the president dedicated himself to inaugurating the barracks of his star security body, the military and civilian hybrid of the National Guard, in the State.

There he was accompanied by the Secretary of Defense, Luis Cresencio Sandoval;

the owner of Marina, José Rafael Ojeda;

and the Secretary of Security, Rosa Icela Rodríguez, the last two ministers had already tested positive for coronavirus in previous months.

The Secretary of Welfare, Javier May, and the Undersecretary Ariadna Montiel also accompanied the president on his tour;

as well as Luis Rodríguez Bucio, commander of the National Guard.

Another of his appointments this Saturday was breakfast with the promising Morena candidate for the Nuevo León government ahead of the June elections, Clara Luz Flores.

And at his side was at all times the head of the Presidential Assistantship - an organ in charge of the president's more discreet security - Daniel Asaf, who also traveled with López Obrador on commercial flights to Monterrey, San Luis Potosí and the return to Mexico City.

It has been 10 months since the president became one of the few leaders in the world who was publicly skeptical of the coronavirus.

The scourge of the pandemic in Mexico that overwhelmed hospital capacity at critical moments in summer and this winter, especially in the capital, in addition to the record of infections after the Christmas holidays, softened the words and attitude of a president who in March of the year The past was closer to the positions of Jair Bolsonaro or Donald Trump.

But the humorous comments still resonate today in the face of a crisis with catastrophic consequences for the world: the key moment in which López Obrador showed some

religious

that would protect him from the pandemic.

“The protective shield is honesty that is what protects, not allowing corruption.

Look, this is the stop.

This is what people give me, ”he came to point out with a laugh on one of his mornings on March 18.

Since then and in the face of the health and economic crisis that has shaken the country, in addition to a barrage of criticism that his government endured, the president has lowered his speech and has taken a step back to let the undersecretary of Health and visible head of management of the pandemic, Hugo López-Gatell, to make the pertinent recommendations. However, the president has refused on numerous occasions to wear a mask in public, as has been this weekend. And that symbolic message consolidated his lax position in the face of a health crisis, which was outside the National Palace, in the social stratum that his Government claims to protect, where hundreds of patients waited eternally to get an oxygen cylinder and in the overflowing corridors of hospitals public, it was more real than ever.