Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei has declared a state of emergency for 30 days, with a nighttime curfew from Sunday to deal with the upsurge in Covid-19 cases in the country.
This decision is due to the multiplication of infections, attributed to the Delta variant, "
more aggressive
" than other strains, Giammattei said in a televised address.
“
The Delta variant is very contagious.
It is causing new epidemics and many governments have had to impose new restrictions on their populations (...) Guatemala cannot be the exception,
”he said.
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Guatemala, which has a population of around 17 million, has recorded up to 4,000 new infections per day, with 407,564 cases and more than 11,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
The text also plans to speed up the purchase of supplies to deal with the pandemic, establishes minimum and maximum prices for basic necessities and prohibits mass meetings, although demonstrations respecting social distancing measures are allowed. .
"
The objective of the measures is to contain the spread of the virus,
" said the president, a doctor by training with legitimacy regularly contested during demonstrations calling for his resignation. He is notably accused of corruption and of having mismanaged the pandemic. He had already imposed a state of emergency in March 2020, when Guatemala recorded its first case of coronavirus.