Colombia’s President Ivan Duque on Monday said that people should get used to the idea that the coronavirus pandemic will not allow the celebration of any holidays this year.
The president made the announcement on his daily Facebook show after the National Health Service reported that infections have continued to accelerate and Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez warned she is close to calling a red alert.
Duque’s economic reactivation going up in smoke?
A red alert would reinstate a lockdown in Bogota as the Colombian Medical Federation has been warning for months,and which economists have said would be the worst case scenario.
The medical community and local authorities have blamed Duque’s alleged rush to reactivate the economy for the accelerating contagion, but the president preferred to blame a general lack of public responsibility.
In some cities of the country we have seen parties and those who decide to take this path of irresponsibility are putting the lives of their loved ones and themselves at risk.
President Ivan Duque
All work, no fun?
Health Minister Fernando Ruiz said the government was considering a more authoritarian approach to enforce stay at home orders that have become impossible to enforce because of Duque’s chaotic attempts to reactivate the economy.
We wouldn’t want to go there but it’s very likely that we’ll have to take the most drastic measures in order to make social discipline and social distancing happen.
President Ivan Duque
How Duque plans to enforce a stay at home order while maintaining his economic reactivation policy is unclear. Police forces and military units throughout the country have begun falling ill.
The president did make it clear that party time was over and that people should prepare to be living under stricter stay at home orders and no traditional holidays until the end of the year.
We have to get used to the idea that we are going to live with this virus for a much longer time than we would all like. We are going to have Love and Friendship Day with coronavirus, we are going to have Halloween with coronavirus, we are going to have Christmas with coronavirus.
President Ivan Duque
The health emergency allowing Duque to enforce all kinds of decrees ends on August 31, making it unclear which state of emergency the president plans to use to deal with the health and economic crisis until next year.