About This Source - Bloomberg QuickTake: Now
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Bloomberg Quicktake: Now published this video item, entitled “Lockdown-Skeptic AMLO’s ‘Scary’ Covid-19 Diagnosis in Mexico” – below is their description.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is continuing to work after contracting Covid-19, holding a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and attending meetings remotely.
The 67-year-old leader said Monday that Putin had agreed to send 24 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine to Mexico. He tweeted a photo of himself sitting at his desk, without a mask.
Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, announced his diagnosis in a tweet late Sunday, following a trip that took him to two states amid a surge in infections and deaths in recent days. The nation now has the fourth-highest number of fatalities globally, after the U.S., Brazil and India.
AMLO has taken a relatively relaxed approach to the virus compared to peers such as Colombia, Peru and Argentina. He has refused to impose mandatory lockdowns and pressed hard to keep the economy open for business.
“The president is well and strong and is working on all public matters and will coordinate and attend some meetings remotely and keep giving instructions,” Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero said Monday, deputizing for Lopez Obrador at his daily press briefing.
Mexico doesn’t have a vice president and, as interior minister, Sanchez Cordero would assume power for as many as 60 days if the president were to die, until lawmakers appoint an interim leader.
AMLO suffered a heart attack in 2013, which he has said was caused by arterial hypertension. He first exhibited mild Covid symptoms Sunday and is now in the care of Health Minister Jorge Alcocer, according to Jose Luis Alomia, a ministry official.
The Mexican peso was the worst major currency of the day Monday, falling 0.8% to 20.13 per dollar at 4:16 p.m. in New York.
If AMLO’s symptoms turn severe, it could have “major implications” for Mexico’s political stability, Eurasia Group wrote in a note. The president has concentrated power heavily in his own hands and his ruling Morena party is a loose coalition with little coherent ideology beyond support for the president.
“There is no actually functioning cabinet, and the direction and details of policy are all defined by the president himself,” they wrote.
Cabinet members are awaiting test results, said Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who joined AMLO and former Chief of Staff Alfonso Romo for a call with U.S. President Joe Biden Friday. None of the three Mexicans on the call wore masks. Ebrard wrote on Twitter Monday that he will work from home until he has a definitive diagnosis.
“Lopez Obrador’s government has been a contagion factor: daily press conferences without masks, tours flying coach, and in-person meetings with governors,” said Viridiana Rios, a political analyst in Mexico City.
When asked by reporters last month why he was contradicting Mexico City’s guidance on mask-wearing, the president replied “everyone is free.”
Read More: AMLO Has a Grand Plan to Transform Mexico, on the Cheap
This past week, Mexico reported two days of record increases in deaths due to the virus, registering a high on Thursday of 1,803 fatalities.
The Latin American nation appears last among 53 countries in Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking.
Lopez Obrador has declined to get vaccinated against Covid-19 until late February, when others in his age group are scheduled for the shots.
The president is fighting to keep his working majority in Congress during midterm elections to be held in June. His approval rating has held above 60% during the crisis, even with the virus raging and the economy estimated to have shrunk around 9% in 2020.
Bloomberg Quicktake: Now YouTube Channel
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With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2 (1,073,500 sq mi), Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the fourth largest in the Americas, the second largest in South America after Brazil, and the largest Spanish-speaking nation by area.
Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.
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Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states and the Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas, as well as the most populous Roman Catholic-majority country.
Its Amazon basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats. Brazil is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country.
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Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely in the north of South America, with territories in North America. Colombia is bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, the northwest by Panama, the south by Ecuador and Peru, the east by Venezuela, the southeast by Brazil, and the west by the Pacific Ocean.
The capital is Bogotá, the country’s largest city. With over 50 million inhabitants Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world. The Republic of Colombia was declared in 1886. Panama seceded in 1903.
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Covid-19 is the official WHO name given to the novel coronavirus which broke out in late 2019 and began to spread in the early months of 2020.
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The main symptoms of coronavirus are:
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- a high temperature (e.g. head feels warm to the touch)
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Below are stories from around the globe related to the 2020 outbreak of novel Coronavirus – since the WHO gave the Covid-19 naming. Most recent items are posted nearest the top.
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He is married to Dr Jill Biden.
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During the 2020 Covid-19 epidemic, lockdown has come to mean the practice of attempting to control transmission of the virus by means of restricting people’s movement and activities on a broad scale, usually on a national or state-wide basis.
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Mexico became an independent nation state after the successful Mexican War of Independence against Spain in 1821.
Mexico is a developing country, but has the world’s 15th-largest economy by nominal GDP and the 11th-largest by PPP, with the United States being its largest economic partner. Since 2006, a conflict between the government and drug trafficking syndicates has led to over 120,000 deaths.
Mexico receives a significant number of tourists every year; in 2018, it was the 6th most-visited country in the world, with 39 million international arrivals.
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In This Story: Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and a former officer of the KGB who has served as President of Russia since 2012, previously holding the position from 1999 until 2008. He was also the Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012.