The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is currently sick with COVID-19;
for now with mild symptoms.
While other of the most powerful men in Mexico, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, is hospitalized for the virus.
And it has just been announced that
the richest man in the country, businessman Carlos Slim Helú, is also infected.
One of Slim Helú's sons warned this Monday afternoon via Twitter that the billionaire went preventively to one of the best hospitals in the country for "timely treatment" after a week of "minor symptoms."
It was not clarified if he will remain hospitalized.
The warning that
three of the most powerful figures in Mexico are infected with
the new coronavirus comes when the country as a whole is at its worst in the pandemic.
Almost 150,000 people have lost their lives as of this Monday, according to the official count, although the authorities do very little tests for COVID-19 and have recognized that the
actual balance would be up to three times higher.
Hospitals are over capacity in several states, unable to accept patients requiring treatment;
crematoria cannot supply or reach coffins;
and there is a shortage of oxygen tanks that has led some Mexicans to make homemade similes of tanks so that their relatives do not die at home.
Mexican Cardinal Norberto Rivera remains in serious health due to COVID-19
Jan. 25, 202100: 18
During January, 19 of the 20 days with the most daily deaths reported due to the new coronavirus have been registered, which has reached the Mexican territory since February 2020.
While
the vaccination campaign progresses extremely slowly
: of the countries in the world that are already vaccinating their population, Mexico is the second worst in terms of people injected per 100 inhabitants.
[The time interval between the first and second doses of the vaccine does not have to be exact, according to experts]
At the moment only medical personnel are being immunized in some of the Mexican states and during the weekend some teachers in the state of Campeche (where there are still no face-to-face classes, but this year will have elections) began to be vaccinated.
There are also several reports that officials have received the doses against COVID-19 that were originally intended for doctors, women doctors and other hospital workers.
Only
about 604,000 people in Mexico
have been vaccinated
with the first dose
, according to official figures, and only 25,000 - 4% - have received the second dose.
In contrast,
as of Monday, 18 million people in the United States had received at least one dose, and 3.2 million have already been injected with the doses
required for full immunization with vaccines approved for emergency use, according to the NBC News count, sister network of Noticias Telemundo.
In places like the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel, the general population is already being vaccinated according to age ranges, which in Mexico has not yet happened.
[The largest vaccination campaign in the world begins in India]
Slim Helú, through its Slim Foundation, is one of the people who has invested the most to help obtain doses of vaccines and personal protective equipment for Mexico and Latin America.
The Slim Foundation is even helping fund the production of the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.