News
Thursday 23rd December 2021.
December 23, 2021
In the last 24 hours in Panama, 668 new infections are reported, this Wednesday, December 22. It was also announced that there were no deaths from the disease caused by the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, so there is a cumulative total of 7,405 deaths for a lethality of 1.5%. To detect the new cases, 10,688 tests were applied for a positivity of 6.2%. Active cases are counted at 4,657, of which 4,503 are in home isolation and 154 hospitalized. Those who are in isolation are divided into 4,359 at home and 144 in hospital hotels. There are 136 patients in wards and 18 in the intensive care unit.
The Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported, this Wednesday, that two new cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed , with the new Omicron variant in Panama. The two new cases correspond to the six suspects that were announced last Monday, 20 whose tests were being analyzed genomically by the Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies (Icges) . The rest of the other cases are still under laboratory surveillance at ICGES, the Ministry announced in a statement. One of the new cases belongs to the Metropolitan Health Region, and it is a 35-year-old man, asymptomatic, vaccinated with two doses of anticovid and with a recent travel history to Colombia.
As of yesterday, December 22, the population over 16 years of age will be able to receive their anticovid booster dose in the centers authorized nationwide. This is as long as three months have elapsed since the application of your second dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca, as reiterated by the Ministry of Health (Minsa) on its social networks. “This new variant is apparently more contagious but it is not necessarily going to be more aggressive in terms of producing serious illness and mortality,” said Israel Cedeño, director of the metropolitan region of Health.
The Ministry of Health (Minsa) reported that the swab centers for the detection of Covid-19, located in the Rod Carew stadiums (via Centenario) and Emilio Royo (in Juan Díaz), will be open during the coming holidays. The hours of service to the public during December 24 and 25 will be from 7:00 am to 12:00 pm; From December 26 to 30 it will be attended from 7:00 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., and from December 31 to January 1 it will be from 7:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.
In a session that lasted less than an hour, the Budget Committee of the National Assembly approved several transfers of items for a total of $ 55.4 million in favor of various institutions and ministries.
In a statement and a television interview, Óscar Ramos, director of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Authority (Ampyme) , affirmed that he wants to make the entity transparent, after a wave of criticism after La Prensa revealed that there is no evidence whatsoever of the effectiveness of the Capital Semilla program, but of a political management to choose the beneficiaries. Ramos indicated that he cannot reveal the information of the beneficiaries of said initiative – which provides non-reimbursable funds of up to $ 2,000 – for entrepreneurs because it obeys Law 81, on the protection of personal data. Ramos, on the other hand, refrained from mentioning that the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information (Antai) publicly confirmed that Ampyme’s arguments for not delivering the information requested by La Prensa “lack legal basis”, since the Data Protection Law has exceptions. Ramos also did not mention that, according to Law 33 of 2013, Antai “is the governing body in terms of access to information and protection of personal data.” He also refrained from clarifying that the opinion of the Public Prosecutor’s Office is not binding and that Decree 285 of 2021 gives Antai the power to monitor compliance with the Data Protection Law.
The guarantee judge Mónica Barrios charged and applied this Wednesday, December 22, the provisional arrest measure to Teresina Lineth Vigil Pérez (alias La Patrona) for the alleged commission of the crime against collective security, in the form of organized crime, for her alleged link to the Damascus operation.
The Colon Free Zone reported transactions for 14.94 billion dollars from January to October of this year, a figure that exceeds the movement registered in the same period last year by 27%. Beyond this advance of one year against another, the second largest commercial area in the world is close to recovering the movement that it registered before the respiratory pandemic of the coronavirus (Covid-19) and that kept the commercial premises paralyzed for more than six months last year.
A warning of prevention due to the passage of a cold front over the country issued this Wednesday, the National Civil Protection System (Sinaproc). This is the # 5 front of the season which has caused rains since the early hours of this Wednesday, in much of the capital. For hours in the afternoon the rains are expected to continue. According to Sinaproc, this event will generate rains and intensification of winds until December 25.