The increase in COVID-19 cases has been slight, "the problem is that it is being gradual and permanent," said the Minister of Health.
The Minister of Health, Luis
Sucre, announced that an increase in
COVID cases is currently being observed in about four districts of the province of Chiriquí, in response to which he calls on the population to maintain the measures of biosecurity.
“From what we have noticed today is that we have four districts that were already going down and have started to go up again, those districts are David, Bugaba, Barú and Dolega, we have to pay a little more attention, we want to ask The Chiricanos who are part of that district that we take care of ourselves, that we not lower our guard, that we increase and reinforce the biosafety regulations, and it calls our attention that these are precisely places where there is greater commercial movement in the province and it is precisely where The cases are getting a little higher for us,”
Sucre explained.
He pointed out that although the increase has been slight, “the problem is that it is being gradual and permanent, that is, it is being constant and that is not good, that turns us on a yellow light and tells us that we have to be alert with these districts.”
He added that in this situation, the
Minsa, together with the inter-institutional team and the private company, will proceed to implement strategies to stop this increase in
COVID-19 cases.
"The team of the province is proposing some strategies this afternoon, they this week will begin to walk in their strategies, to reinforce their teams, which will be doing night operations, mainly in the commercial part, together with a team from the private company that promised that it would work with the Ministry of Health and with the inter-institutional team to try to control this increase,” he added.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Alberta relaxed its COVID-19 restrictions because the province hit predetermined vaccination goals. Patrick King, a Canadian resident, has been falsely credited on social media with driving the change. But that’s due to a misunderstanding of what happened in a court case.
THE FACTS: Court records show King was fined in December for violating COVID-19 measures, specifically for gathering in a large group while protesting masks and pandemic restrictions.
King, who represented himself in court, sought to challenge the validity of Alberta’s public health rules and requested that the province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, present papers that discuss the isolation of SARS-CoV-2 “directly from a sample taken from a diseased patient.”
In July, the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta quashed the subpoena and found that King had not shown the material he requested was relevant to his case. The court also said the health agency “has no material evidence” that pertains to King’s fine.
Multiple social media users, including King, misrepresented the language used by the court, falsely suggesting it proved there is no evidence that COVID-19 exists. During an interview with conservative podcaster Stew Peters, King falsely stated: “They knew this whole time that this was never isolated,” later adding that restrictions were made to “bankrupt our country under the guise of a false pandemic.”
The AP has previously debunked the false claim that coronavirus has never been isolated. Chinese authorities first isolated the virus on Jan. 7, 2020 and Canadian scientists did so in March of 2020.