News
Wednesday 17th November 2021.
November 17, 2021
With the registration of 193 new cases, the Ministry of Health (Minsa) confirmed that the number of active cases of Covid-19 amounts to 1,918. According to the epidemiological report of this Tuesday, November 16, these 193 new infections were the result of the application of 7,396 tests for a positivity of 2.6%. Yesterday, Monday, the Minsa reported 1,848 active cases. Regarding the deaths, it is specified that in the last 24 hours 2 were reported, for an accumulated total since the pandemic began, in March 2020, of 7,348 with a lethality of 1.5%. Of the active cases it is specified that 1,784 are in home isolation; 1,704 at home and 80 in hotels. With respect to those hospitalized, the figure is 134; in the wards there are 112, while in intensive care 22.
The President of the Republic, Laurentino Cortizo , again called on the population not to lower their guard against the Covid-19 pandemic . “On November 1 we had 2.7% positivity” and currently it is 3.7%, Cortizo said, during the act that marked the start of the construction and expansion project of the Autopista-Puerto de Vacamonte highway (West Panama). “Be careful, we cannot lower our guard,” said the president, who asked people to get vaccinated against Covid-19. “Not getting vaccinated is being clumsy, not understanding that you are putting other people’s lives in danger,” he added.
The Ministry of Health reported this Tuesday, that a batch of 100,620 doses of the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 arrived in the country. With this new shipment in Panama, a total of 301 thousand 860 doses were received in November for the immunization program against the new coronavirus, which has left 7 thousand 346 deaths in the country up until Monday, November 15.
At an arraignment hearing held the afternoon of this Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry , of the Eastern District Court of New York, rejected a bond of $ 3 million proposed by Martinelli Linares as insufficient and supported the concern of the prosecution, which previously communicated to the court that there was a “significant” risk of flight, considering the purchasing power and influence of the accused, son of former President Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal. A bond of “$ 3 million or $ 5 million is like a drop in the ocean,” Henry said.
The Third Criminal Liquidator Court of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama decided to open a criminal case against 26 citizens, for the alleged commission of four crimes in the case known as Blue Apple. In addition, the trial date is set from June 20 to July 1, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. and an alternate date is scheduled from August 16 to 26, 2022. According to the Judicial Branch, the group of 26 people committed crimes against the public faith (falsification of documents), collective security (illicit association), public administration (corruption of public servants) and the economic order (money laundering) .
When consulting the deputy president of the National Assembly, Crispiano Adames , if drug trafficking had infiltrated Panamanian politics, he answered yes, as it had done in “the media … businessmen and all entities that develop the national economy and social life ”. Adames spoke on Monday, when he was consulted by the media about the murder of the deputy director of the Public Registry, Agustín Lara , this Sunday in Los Andes. Upon hearing Adames’s statements, the president of the National Journalism Council (CNP), Guillermo Antonio Adames , demanded in a note sent to the National Assembly on November 15 that he “publicly give the names and specific cases of the media.” to which he was referring.
The Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office will request an indictment hearing in the investigation for alleged irregularities in the release of inmate José Cossio, detained in the Punta Coco prison and designated by the authorities as the leader of the Calor Calor gang.
Members of environmental organizations gathered yesterday at the headquarters of the Ministry of the Environment (Miambiente) in Albrook, Ancón district, to protest against the titling of protected areas. The protesters demanded with banners in hand the repeal of Executive Decree 141 of October 27, 2021, which creates the certificates of accreditation of land use in protected areas. For the Environmental Incidence Center (CIAM) , the decree creates without any legal support a new and anomalous legal figure, the land use accreditation certificates, which are neither possessory rights nor property titles. “The authorities should be seeking real solutions and development options for those communities that have remained within protected areas and that for decades have been abandoned by the State,” CIAM said in a statement.