Mexico’s AMLO, infected a third time, admits he briefly fainted from COVID-19
MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador acknowledged Wednesday that he did “briefly faint” over the weekend before he was diagnosed with COVID-19, something his spokesman had previously denied.
López Obrador said his doctors had been concerned enough to administer about a quart of rehydration fluids. He said in a videotaped chat from the National Palace in Mexico City — where he lives and is isolating — that doctors wanted to fly him back to the capital on a stretcher.
He had been on a working tour of the Yucatán peninsula Sunday when he tested positive for the coronavirus, marking his third bout of COVID-19. But he wrote on his social media accounts that “it isn’t serious.”
Reports in the local media that day said López Obrador had felt faint Sunday morning, something his presidential spokesman denied at the time.
On Wednesday, however, the president acknowledged that it “had become complicated. ... I had a crisis, because my blood pressure suddenly went down” during a meeting with military engineers working on his pet project, a tourist train on the Yucatán peninsula.
“It was like I fell asleep,” he said. “I didn’t lose consciousness, but I did briefly faint because of the low blood pressure.”
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The president said he was flown back to Mexico City aboard an “air ambulance,” but noted that he was not carried on a stretcher.
López Obrador, 69, who has acknowledged a history of heart problems, said his heart was “not at all affected.”
On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar, who frequently meets with López Obrador, said that he, too, had tested positive for the coronavirus, adding on his Twitter account: “I am well.”
López Obrador caught COVID-19 in early 2021 and was ill, but recovered after receiving what he described at the time as an experimental treatment. In January 2022, he announced he had come down with COVID-19 a second time, amid a spike in coronavirus infections in Mexico.
Mexico’s transparency institute, which has played a pivotal role in exposing corruption, is fighting President López Obrador to do its job.
López Obrador declined to enact mandatory mask mandates, and he refused to wear a mask even at the peak of the pandemic unless it was absolutely necessary, such as on airline flights. He famously refused to use Mexico’s presidential jet, which he recently announced had been sold to Tajikistan.
While López Obrador remains in isolation — he said he has spent the time working on speeches — Interior Secretary Adán Augusto López has been filling in at the daily presidential morning news briefings.
That could provide a boost for the interior secretary’s flagging campaign to win the presidential nomination of López Obrador’s Morena party for the 2024 elections. López, who is not related to the president, currently trails Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum in most polls of the primary race.
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