PAN Joins the Conversation/COVID-19 Update
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PAN Joins the Conversation/COVID-19 Update

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Sofía Hanna By Sofía Hanna | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Tue, 12/14/2021 - 12:07

Medicine delivery. Minister of Health Jorge Alcocer Varela announced that the delivery of medicines in the country has been accelerated due to the support of the Armed Forces and that logistics entities are joining the effort to supply 5,079 health units. “Thanks to the participation of the Defense, Navy and National Guard, the delivery of medicines and healing materials has been streamlined for 32 entities with a total of 37,425, 897 million pieces of supplies.”

 

COVID-19. Deputy Minister of Prevention and Health Promotion Hugo López-Gatell said that there had been no negative impact related to the coronavirus pandemic since the return to school. In fact, there has been a downward trend in cases among minors. Only 0.13 percent of schools reported some kind of affectation. López-Gatell also announced that proof of previous vaccination would be required for the application of the booster dose against COVID-19 in order to facilitate the procedure.

 

Electronic cigarettes. López-Gatell said Mexican legislators were using “tricks” to remove the current law’s prohibition on three types of novel products derived from tobacco. His remarks were related to an initiative that seeks to ban the export and sale of electronic cigarettes and vaping devices. “This initiative uses the word ‘except’ to exclude electronic cigarettes so that they are not prohibited and only vaping devices are prohibited. Two drawbacks: harmful products beyond being tobacco are very harmful. The second is of a commercial nature; by prohibiting vaping devices and not electronic cigarettes, discrimination is established that would be repudiated for commercial matters. It is a trick that is intended to induce strategic litigation so that the ban is removed.”

 

Sowing Life. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life) program would be implemented among the inhabitants of the Sierra de San Miguelito region to provide residents with work reforesting the mountains and at the same time recovering the region’s natural wealth. “A reforestation program is included to support peasants from all ejidos, all communities of more than 100,000ha; they will be supported with the Sowing Life program,” López Obrador said. López Obrador’s flagship Sowing Life program aims to fight poverty in rural regions by providing jobs planting trees.

 

Dialogue with PAN and Segob. López Obrador applauded the Ministry of the Interior (Segob) and the National Action Party (PAN) agreement to establish “dialogue tables” to address various issues, such as the controversial Electricity Reform that the Union Congress intends to promote. López Obrador said the move would be very good for both parties. “It is great that they raised a dialogue. We want dialogue for them to know the reason for the government’s action, that they have more elements and that they act thinking of the general interest, what it represents, not the partisan interest.” The president called on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to join the dialogue. “I hope the PRI does the same so that there is dialogue.”

 

Vaccine applications. Marcelo Ebrard, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), highlighted that Mexico was the first country in Latin America to have the COVID-19 vaccine and that now it is the country with the most doses applied, with more than 185 million doses administered since December 2020. “We have more than 80 million people already protected, 37 percent of the vaccines have been packaged in Mexico and we are the seventh country with the most vaccines applied in absolute numbers after one year,” said Ebrard.

 

 

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Click HERE for full transcript in Spanish

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